Gladding-Hearn Shipbuilding is a shipyard located in Somerset, Massachusetts on the Taunton River.
Gladding-Hearn was founded in 1954 by Preston Gladding and Richard Hearn, and delivered its first vessel, a fishing boat, in 1956.
[2] The company built largely tugboats, pilot boats, and fishing vessels for the next several decades.
[2] In 1977, Gladding-Hearn was the first American shipyard to launch a tug equipped with a Z-drive propulsion system,[3] and in 1978 built the first pilot boat to a deep-V hull design by naval architect C. Raymond Hunt that became the industry standard in following years.
[2] It has since built the majority of such vessels in service on the Eastern seaboard and Great Lakes.