While some other businesses in the industry boast pictures on Instagram of their big projects fixing up flashy superyachts and megayachts, New England Yacht Rigging Inc. in Warwick is more than willing to pick up all the jobs working on Catalina 30 sailboats that are ubiquitous in the marinas around Rhode Island.
“There are a couple other rig shops across the bay that focus on these hotshot racing programs,” said Daniel Martinez, vice president of New England Yacht Rigging. “They post them on social media. We’re happy to let them do it. They’re fighting over a very small market. We’re willing to do all the less-sexy jobs.”
Martinez estimates there are 500 small family boats docked in the local area served by his business, but that the “expensive maxi yachts” are more rarely kept in Narragansett Bay. Those more humble vessels are the bread and butter for New England Yacht Rigging, he said.
“That’s our market,” Martinez said. “Catalina 30s are all over the place. It’s a very common, very good, affordable family boat. I can throw a rock from my shop and hit four of them. There are a number of rig shops in Rhode Island. The pie is big enough for everyone to get a slice.”
New England Yacht Rigging was founded in 1980 by Charlie Russell, who ran the shop with his wife, Maggie, for nearly four decades, until retiring a couple years ago, Martinez said. The shop, which now employs five people during its peak working season, was previously located across the street from the East Greenwich Yacht Club, moving to its present location about four years ago.
“We simply had outgrown the space,” said Martinez, a careerlong rigger who’s been with New England Yacht Rigging for about six years, now as a co-owner with company President Kyle Wishart. “This was [the Russells’] life. A lot of their friendships came through the shop. They loved sailing with clients. I think they’re sailing with a couple of our clients now. It became like a social club sometimes, as people would pop in throughout the day, and they’d pop in across the street for a drink. We’re very lucky that was something we got to inherit.”
The company is constantly busy with a mix of small maintenance jobs and lengthy revitalization projects that sometimes require parts to be slowly imported from across the world.
As of early May, Martinez said the company had 30 to 40 open projects.
“We take care of everything on boats from the deck up,” Martinez said. “Whereas boatyards and mechanics take care of fiberglass and the engine and stuff like that, we deal mostly with the items that make it a sailboat – the mast, the booms, wires that hold the mast up, all the controls and lines for picking up sails and moving them around.”
Martinez said sometimes New England Yacht Rigging does jobs that are completely unrelated to boats but involve rope, metal fabrication and wire skills.
One notable example of that is the 450-foot-long Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Bridge in Providence that was completed in 2019. New England Yacht Rigging fabricated and installed the wire guard rails on the pedestrian bridge, which goes over the Providence River.
“Every time I go by it with my son, he’s like, ‘That’s the bridge my daddy helped build,’ ” Martinez said.
OWNERS: President Kyle Wishart and Vice President Daniel Martinez
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Marine services, yacht rigging
LOCATION: 1 Masthead Drive, Warwick
EMPLOYEES: Three to five (seasonal)
YEAR FOUNDED: 1980
ANNUAL REVENUE: $675,000
