Amsterdam-based Tideman Boats BV, a high density polyethylene boat builder, just opened its first location in North America, in North Andover, Mass.

"Tideman Rigid Buoyancy Boats have been sold from home headquarters in Amsterdam to virtually all around the world over the past many years," Matt O'Sullivan, head of sales and business partnerships at Tideman Boats US, told Plastics News in an emailed statement. "We are very excited that we will now manufacture the powerfully designed Tideman RBB HDPE work boats in the USA."

Tideman makes pleasure boats, but its focus has been on work boats such as buoy tenders, pilot boats, patrol launches and other uses requiring durability. Tideman hulls are only produced with black HDPE to provide better protection from solar damage.

"I'm thrilled to say we are also launching our Blackfish HDPE line of fishing center console boats," O'Sullivan said in a Feb. 18 news release. "Our high-speed, lightweight, quiet and rugged hulls are virtually unsinkable and have a limited lifetime warranty on the hull with a standard manufacturer's warranty on installed components. The U.S. market has been waiting for this."

Because of the Jones Act, a federal law that requires goods shipped between U.S. ports to be transported on ships that are built, owned and operated by U.S. citizens or permanent residents, "it was suitable to expand and establish a manufacturing partnership with strategic partners who had serious manufacturing capabilities in North America," O'Sullivan said.

The work boat hulls are manufactured in a thermoplastics welding fabrication facility.

The Tideman RBB has no bottom paint, no gel coat and is "100 percent recyclable," the release said. Marine growth doesn't stick to the HDPE hulls, and they have a "five-times-lower carbon dioxide footprint compared to aluminum," it said.

Since beginning production of HDPE boats in 2013, Tideman's customers have included Damen, BP, Boskalis, Astaldi and others.

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