Steve Barnett, Chairman of WorldSpan Marine, and Dan Fritz, founder of the Queenship Group are pleased to jointly announce that WorldSpan has acquired Queenship Marine Industries of Vancouver, British Columbia. Queenship’s new purpose-built 90,000 square foot production facility and shipyard, strategically located on the Fraser River 35 miles east of Vancouver, can accommodate the simultaneous construction of 10 yachts, as large as 150’ in length. The new facility also contains the largest paint facility on the west coast of North America.
WorldSpan is in the business of acquiring and investing in well managed strategic marine businesses that have a solid asset base, strong brand recognition, and outstanding prospects for growth. “WorldSpan will add the one ingredient that Queenship has lacked in the past, and that is a strong balance sheet,” says WorldSpan’s Barnett who added “we were really impressed that the Queenship brand and reputation has been built on such a convincingly steadfast commitment to quality”.
During the past three decades, the Queenship yard had produced small and mid-sized sail and power boats before Queenship refocused its efforts in the mid 90’s on midsized luxury motor yachts. Queenship, which was a pioneer in some of the early composite construction techniques commonly used in the industry today, is particularly known for the exquisite quality of its joinery and interior finishing, and leading edge electrical systems.
WorldSpan also announced that Jim Hawkins has been appointed as Queenship’s President. Having over 25 years in the marine industry, with the past 12 years managing both operations and client relations at Crescent Custom Yachts, Jim oversaw the construction of more than 20 yachts ranging in size from 92 to 127 feet. A yachting enthusiast all his life, Jim was trained as a shipwright, originally building high performance and luxury sailing craft in his native New Zealand before immigrating to Canada in the early 80’s.
“The combination of Queenship’s world class tradesmen and facilities, and WorldSpan’s financial acumen and business contacts will make us truly formidable within our industry. This is a great opportunity to build Queenship to its full potential.” said Hawkins. “I believe our yachts are best known for the extraordinarily sea kindly yet rugged hulls which we build to tackle the worst of the storms our owners might encounter anywhere.” he added.
With 1400 ft. of deep water frontage at the Queenship yard there is plenty of room for growth. Expansion plans include a new travel lift which will enable the Company to make its giant state of the art paint facility readily available to the refit market, and construction of a new dedicated high tech building to house the leading edge composite construction for which Queenship has become so well known.
In addition to custom yachts of all designs, Queenship presently builds three semi-production series: the Admiralty series from 61 to 70’; the 70’ to 77’ Berretta series; and the Caribe series with models up to 96’. Design work and retooling is already underway which will see increases to the beam and length to the hulls as well as styling upgrades to each of these series.
Queenship Marine Industries Ltd.
Phone: (604) 462-1388
Fax: (604) 462-1677
Email:
info@queenship.com
Web:
http://www.queenship.com/ 
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