About Us

The Lunenburg Shipyard Alliance

The Lunenburg Shipyard Alliance is a joint venture company forged of three of Atlantic Canada’s most successful  marine businesses with over 200 years of combined experience. Lunenburg Industrial Foundry & Engineering, Snyder’s Shipyard and Covey Island Boatworks have collaborated on many projects over the years, most recently to carry out the rebuild of Bluenose II, Canada’s sailing ambassador.

Here is a brief on the Lunenburg Shipyard’s partners : 

Covey Island Boatworks 

The Covey Island Boatworks yard was established on Covey Island, one of the LaHave Islands in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, in 1979 by John Steele and two partners. 

The first Covey boats were canoes and kayaks, but soon commercial fishing vessels, hydrographic survey launches, competitive multi-hulls and off-shore sailing yachts were being built. All were custom and built of composite wood and epoxy. 

Covey Island long ago relocated to facilities on the mainland. When fire destroyed that yard in 2008 the yard rose again and established operations in both Riverport and Lunenburg with greatly improved access and facilities.

Over the years Covey Island have built close to 100 custom vessels which have won countless awards and races, circumnavigated and cruised throughout the world and been the subject of scores of editorials on this yard’s innovative and exciting stable of custom vessels.

Lunenburg Industrial Foundry & Engineering

Established since 1891, Lunenburg Foundry has manufactured a broad range of marine and industrial equipment that provide robust and reliable service. More than a century after its inception, Lunenburg Foundry and Engineering combines expertise in fabrication, machining and metal casting with legendary attention to its customers’ needs.

Lunenburg Foundry has diverse and flexible capabilities that enable it to provide custom fabrications, machining, casting and in-house engineering design and project management on a contract basis.

Lunenburg Foundry has transitioned through a number of businesses since the age of sail, and has exhibited an ability to adapt to changing technologies and market needs. LIFE™ has experience in the energy sector, having produced over a period of many decades a line of cast iron stoves, furnaces and related heating products, and provided HVAC & mechanical contracting services.

Snyder’s Shipyard

Snyder’s Shipyard Limited is located on the beautiful east side of the LaHave River in Dayspring, Nova Scotia – 12 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean – with a dock water depth of 20 feet.

Since the yard opened in 1876, over 200 vessels of all sizes and types of construction have been built here.

Being a full-service shipyard, Snyder’s has the facilities and the ability to build and repair boats up to 110 feet in length at its Dayspring yard. They also have the people, vehicles and tools to take their trade to you.

Snyder’s Shipyard is one of few yards in eastern Canada that specializes in building wooden vessels. They also build vessels from fiberglass and from steel, wood-fiberglass construction and vessels with traditional wood ribs encased in a fiberglass sheathing. Snyder’s Shipyard also has the facilities for welding stainless, aluminum, steel as well as doing mechanical and hydraulic work. They can perform major and minor repairs to wharves and have access to the Marine Railway enabling us to do repairs on larger boats.

Lunenburg, Nova Scotia

The restoration of Bluenose II, the first official project of the Lunenburg Shipyard Alliance, is taking place on the Lunenburg waterfront, adjacent to where the original Bluenose was constructed in 1921.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, picturesque Lunenburg is the perfect site for the restoration of a vessel that is synonymous with that community and its longstanding ties to the age of wood, wind and sail.