Bath Iron Works

BIW employees are premier designers and builders of complex, technologically advanced naval ships. Since the 1950s, BIW has served as lead shipyard for 10 non-nuclear surface ship classes produced by the U.S. Navy, more than any other U.S. shipyard. In 1995, BIW was purchased by General Dynamics, further enhancing the company's technological expertise and capabilities through key investments and access to the complementary capabilities of other General Dynamics companies. Bath Iron Works today is the lead designer and builder of the ARLEIGH BURKE Class AEGIS guided missile destroyer, the most technologically advanced surface combatant in the world. Key Dates: For more than a century, Bath Iron Works (BIW) has been building ships, chiefly for the U.S. Navy. From its mile-long stretch of waterfront along the Kennebec River have come more oceangoing vessels than from any area of similar size in the world. In its busiest period, BIW built a quarter of the Navy's destroyers launched during World War II. The fourth largest shipyard in the United States and the largest private employer in Maine, BIW has not built a commercial vessel since 1984 and, with the end of the Cold War and diminishing naval contracts, has sought to supplement its business, investigating, for example, the prospect of building large carriers to transport automobiles and trucks. Its 1995 acquisition by General Dynamics Corp., however, has allowed the company to focus on Navy vessels. The history of Bath Iron Works is a vital chapter in Maine's seafaring history. Not more than a dozen miles away from the town of Bath, settlers established the first colony in New England--13 years before the landing of the Mayflower --and built the first oceangoing vessel made by Englishmen in America in order to take themselves home. But curiously, the company owes its origin to a soldier rather than a sailor. The scion of a prosperous Bath merchant family, Thomas Worcester Hyde was a Civil War army officer who rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Union Army at the age of 23. Hyde leased a local iron foundry after returning home and opened Bath Iron Works, Ltd. in 1884 as a family enterprise. But the Navy remained Bath's primary customer. Between 1899 and 1901 the company delivered five very light and high-speed torpedo boats to the Navy. These pioneering craft were the Navy's first of this type until World War II's PT boats. A cruiser, the Cleveland, was built in 1904, and BIW's only battleship, the Georgia, was completed the same year. The hull of the Georgia, however, was barely able to clear the riverbed in Bath, and as battleships graduated into the larger Dreadnought class, it became clear that Bath would have to confine itself to building smaller ships. BIW's scout cruiser Chester, completed in 1908, was the first turbine-propelled ship in the Navy and its fastest vessel, except for torpedo boats. In a race against two other ships of this type, it averaged 25.8 knots over 24 hours. In 1909 BIW built its first two torpedo boat destroyers. This new type of craft was designed to counter the smaller torpedo boat, yet carry its basic weapon. The name was soon shortened to simply 'destroyer,' and by 1912 BIW was the Navy's chief specialist for this kind of light, fast warship, which would become the most versatile of modern naval vessels. The destroyer has served as an escort ship on convoy duty and performed many other essential functions, but its chief mandate--especially since World War II--has been to detect, hunt down, and destroy submarines. Building yachts for captains of industry proved a profitable sideline. For J.P. Morgan II, BIW built the 343-foot-long Corsair IV, which was launched in 1930. Although the Great Depression ended, in large part, Bath's yachtbuilding operations, in 1936 Harold S. Vanderbilt commissioned the company to build a racer to defend the America's Cup. The resulting Ranger was the last of the J class sloops to defend the Cup, defeat