After nearly a year of plummeting sales and unprecedented layoffs, Maine's boatbuilding industry may be on the verge of a rebound as potential buyers show an increased interest in new boat purchases. Many companies that were forced to let workers go when orders fell off last fall are now planning on rehiring some of them. In the third and final segment of our series on boatbuilding in Maine, A.H. Higgins looks at what's on the horizon for the industry.

A year ago, the looming economic storm was already descending on the Hinckley Yacht Company's operations in Trenton and Southwest Harbor. The first of three rounds of layoffs that would ultimately cut the company's workforce almost in half were underway. When the stock market plunged, a lot of Phil Bennett's expectations went with it. But Hinckley's sales manager says he feels the winds of change blowing his way. The company now plans to rehire about 80 workers.

"Things are now coming back," Bennett says. "People have realized that if they're waiting for world peace, it's probably going to be another 2,000 years. If they're waiting for perfect sanity in government that may be not quite as long a wait -- but close."

By definition, boatyards are noisy places and the Trenton shop where Hinckley cranks out powered yachts known as picnic boats, that range in price from three-quarters of a million dollars to twice that amount, is no exception. And now that the economy appears to be regaining a foothold, Bennett says his wealthy and previously cautious customers have concluded that they're not going to lose everything they own.

"What we're finding now is that people who look at themselves and say 'This is what I like to do with my life or family --this is what I like to do. I've got enough money that I can afford to do this,'" he says. "Those people are finally saying 'Life goes on and I'm going to live it.' "

"There is a little glimmer of hope out there. There was not this pervasive attitude of doom and gloom," says Susan Swanton, Executive Director of the Maine Marine Trades Association. Swanton spent most of the summer getting ready for the Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Show that was held in Rockland two months ago.

Yacht companies like Hinckley, Morris, of Bass Harbor and Lyman Morse, of Thomaston were not overly optimistic going into the event after nearly a year of global economic turmoil. But a number of very discriminating buyers showed up and Swanton says the boatyard representatives were only too happy to accommodate them.

"It is difficult to have a sale close at a show. There's always the conversation about this versus that and what if I wanted, you know, this engine versus that engine? What if I wanted this size hull versus that size hull? What if I wanted this construction material versus that? It's not like, you know, going to the car lot and saying I'll take that one."

"When you get a custom yard like Lyman Morse, you're going to have an owner that is going to build a boat that he thinks is it. You know, that this is the way everybody should do it -- this is it," says Bill Belyea, the Carpentry Manager at Lyman Morse boatyard. Belyea says customers seem to be ready to pay for the extras to make their boat one-of-a-kind.

Like many of the companies that handcraft power and sailing yachts, Lyman Morse and others are seeing an increasing interest in the powered segment of the industry. Hinckley spokesman Phil Bennett says the industry's new emphasis is a direct response to customer demands.

"A lot of people do not have as much time, leisure time, to spend on the water sailing as they did in the past. And that's one of the reasons that the power boat business in everybody's world has been fueled," Bennett says. "People say 'I have to get back to lacrosse game, you know, by such and such time.' So we really need the ability to predict that, and a power boat is what gives it to us."

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in recent years Maine's boatbuilding industry has produced an aggregate payroll of $65 million dollars annually and more than $250 million dollars in combined annual sales.