Douglas & Sharon Goldhirsch

Southport Island Marine, LLC was established in May of 2000 on the site of the former David Nutt Boatbuilder.

The new owner, Douglas Goldhirsch, continues to serve many of the same customers as the previous business as well as many new customers.

Douglas Goldhirsch grew up on the waters of Long Island, NY’s Great South Bay. He learned to sail at an early age, and also gained power boat experience from the time he was an teenager. By age 18 he was running a freight boat during the summers. While in High School in 1972, Doug, with his brother and father, built a boat which is still in the family.

Sharon & Doug were married in 2002 and Sharon handles the books and helps with marketing of the yards boats and services. Before marrying Doug and moving to Maine, Sharon lived all her life in Denver Colorado.

Doug is a graduate of the Webb Institute for Naval Architecture . . . He attended Webb after a year learning how to build wooden boats left him wanting to know more. Following this rigorous education, he ran a construction business in the NY area for 5 years. Doug had acquired his Coast guard license by 1990 (100 Ton Master all Oceans, 200 ton Mate) and in 1991-1992 he worked for the Sea Education Association (SEA) as second mate and ship board instructor on their sail training ships. (Visit www.sea.edu.) Doug invented and designed (along with Dave Gerr) the remarkable Piece Boat folding kayak in 1990. Any of you who were into kayaking in the early 90’s may remember them. In 1992 he went to work for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (HIOBS) in Rockland, Maine as one of their Pulling Boat Instructors.

For nearly 10 years this was Dougs primary activity – a very demanding and rewarding job! (Visit www.hurricaneisland.org.) He still tries to get out on an Outward Bound cruise a bit each summer. Doug’s desire to find a challenging, marine related profession that would not require him to spend so much time traveling and at sea led him to Southport and the old David Nutt yard. He appreciated the beauty of the Southport 30, and got very excited about the possibilities of building, developing, and marketing this product, as well as operating and upgrading the storage business.

And so it was that in May of 2000, Doug began to manage this well equipped, well situated, and high quality boatyard. Since acquiring this business, Doug & Sharon have done a lot of work to improve the facility.

Come visit us! In addition, many improvements were made to the manner in which Southport 30’s are built and outfitted. We are continually improving our product. We are also expanding our new boat offerings: Coming in 2006 the Southport HB-21. Check it out. We are also working on modified versions of our Southport 30’s which you can learn more about elsewhere on this site. The yard is operating more efficiently than ever, and the quality of the work is consistently high. We pride ourselves on being a top quality yard, and somewhat less expensive than some of our competitors.