Boatbuilding, even in the most modern and well-maintained facilities, is hard work. Whether you’re a member of the production team who wrestles with long runs of cumbersome, prebundled electrical wires or a fiberglass laminator who applies resin and layup materials, building boats is not for everyone.
Though still male-dominated, the boatbuilding industry has seemingly enjoyed a large influx of women workers in the past four decades. To get to know some of these hardworking women, Soundings Trade Only toured Viking Yacht Co.’s sprawling factory in New Gretna, N.J., where as many as 70 state-of-the-art sportfish hulls roll off the production floor each year, along with another 20 Valhalla Boatworks V-55 center consoles.
The factory has women working in virtually every facet of the business, from purchasing and marketing to fiberglass lamination and wiring production. There are also a number of women working at the company’s Mullica River facility in Egg Harbor City, N.J., where all but one model in the Valhalla Boatworks center console lineup are produced.
“It doesn’t matter what you do here; you’re still important,” says Karen Valle, who has worked at Viking Yacht Co. for 22 years in the purchasing department. “The folks who sweep the floors, the woman who runs the lunchroom and every other position in between … the boats don’t get built without them. Every person counts. I like being a part of a team, a family.”
Valle is the office manager for purchasing. Her department is responsible for procuring the thousands of parts that go into each Viking sportfish and Valhalla center console, whether it’s a stainless-steel lock nut or a 2,600-hp diesel. It’s a job recently made more challenging because of supply-chain issues caused in part by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The most challenging aspect of my job is that we have to maintain a good relationship with our vendors, but we also can’t be pushovers,” Valle says. “When the production line is screaming for one small part that’s needed to finish a boat, we have to be tough with our suppliers. The squeaky wheel gets the grease. The supply chain has improved, but we still have to stay on top of things. Some people have a tough time being nice and getting what we need, but it’s a part of the job I really enjoy.”
Another woman who has been at Viking for more than two decades is Mary Foust, who is the senior member of the marketing and communications team. “The best part about my job is that it is never boring,” she says. “We just wrapped our Viking Key West Challenge fishing tournament, and organizing that event and managing the logistics is a really big job. Every detail has to be considered and thought out. My day-to-day responsibilities are interesting; one day is never like the next.”
Outside the factory, in the pre-delivery area at the company’s “make ready” dock, is Nuria Trujillo, a 23-year Viking employee who is the lead detailer among a crew of seven people who spit-polish every last nook and cranny of each boat that leaves the property. She’s inside the main salon of a Viking 72 removing, cleaning and replacing galley drawers, each of which gets a thorough detailing, right down to cleaning and lubricating the slides. She and her crew are responsible for making sure everything — inside and out — is spotless for the customer on delivery.
“We clean and detail everything except the engine-room spaces,” Trujillo says. “A lot of the work we do is in places people never look at. It’s important.”
Trujillo says that by the time a boat leaves the factory, goes through sea trials and is delivered to the customer, it’s been cleaned and detailed three or four times. “We polish and clean everything outside from top to bottom and go through the inside many times before the final clean,” she says. “I like being part of a team and being responsible for the condition of the boat when the customer takes it.”
One thing Viking does to retain employees — male and female — is to allow them to move and grow into positions that best fit their talents and interests. One such person is Karen Kelly, who has been with the company for nearly 30 years. She started long ago doing clerical work, which lasted about eight months.
“I learned pretty quickly that sitting at a desk was not for me,” Kelly says, “so I started poking around to see what else I might be able to do. I worked in the fibgerglass department and carpentry before ending up here in the electrical department as lead bench electrician.”
Kelly works at a large bench where she runs wires through a labeling machine, installs terminal connections and then bundles the wiring to breaker panels, electronic helm components and other electrical systems. Sometimes she relies on engineering drawings to get everything just right, but with other common wiring assemblies, she can rely on muscle and sight memory from her decades of experience. “I like working with my hands,” Kelly says.
Women on the Viking team are also keen to help others develop within their roles. Abigail Alvarado has been working alongside Kelly for the past five months and has been encouraged to keep up with her vocational/technical classes so she can advance within the company. “She’s smart and a hard worker,” Kelly says. “When you find someone with those qualities, it feels good to work with them to improve their skills and move up in the company, like I did. She’ll do really well if she sticks with it, which I think she will.”
The factory takes on a grittier feeling downstairs, in the fiberglass department, called “Viglass.” We begin in a room with a huge Eastman automated cutting machine that was installed on the shop floor last year. The machine uses detailed engineering data and laser scanners to cut fiberglass shapes precisely from a variety of cloth types. Berta Reyes, who has been with Viking for a combined 22 years, leads a group of three other women responsible for producing the complex fiberglass cloth shapes used in a variety of parts that go into every boat.
“Every fiberglass assembly is stored here in the machine with a list of different cloth parts and types,” Reyes says. “The machine then reads an AutoCAD drawing before cutting out the pieces. Then we package up all the cutouts, which are then transported to lamination. It’s much easier than cutting each one by hand, much easier.”
Carolina Ocampo, who works in a lab on the second floor, has one of the most important jobs in the factory. The technician, who has worked at Viking for 23 years, is responsible for testing every shipment of gelcoat and laminating resin that arrives at the factory— thousands of gallons each year. It’s her job to ensure that every drop meets all technical specifications and will cure properly when catalyzed.
Ocampo started at Viking as a fiberglass cutter, where she worked for four years before moving to the resin control lab. “I like my job because it’s very important,” she says. “I also like that people trust me to do my job right and respect what I do here.”
The gelcoat and resin that Ocampo stamps with her seal of approval, passing QC analysis, eventually makes its way down to the lamination areas on the factory’s first floor. It’s a busy, frenetic environment.
All of the Viking hulls, and many smaller parts, such as the Valhalla hardtops, are often built using resin-infusion, a process that places the part under a vacuum to ensure that the exact amount of resin makes it through every inch of the laminated part. The process makes a stronger part that is lighter in weight than components laid up by hand. Many women work on the laminating bags and monitor the resin flow.
Perhaps the most impressive part of the boatbuilding process is the spraying of gelcoat into the hull mold, and the subsequent application of many layers of laminates. Many women are employed in Viglass, where the process of building each boat begins.
Working inside a Viking 64 Convertible hull mold is a team of six women and four men who are installing dry laminates into the mold in preparation for resin infusion. They are surrounded by what seems like an acre of fiberglass cloth, each person scrambling about in rubber booties to get to every part of the smoothly contoured hull.
Carmen Rodriguez, who has been with Viking for 10 months, and Reyna Gonzalez, who has 16 months of fiberglass work under her belt, stepped out of the hull mold to talk about their jobs. “I enjoy the learning process,” Gonzalez says. “Every day I work here, I get faster and better with the process. It makes me quicker and better at what I do.”
Adds Rodriquez: “This is tough work not everyone can do. I like being a part of a team and knowing when I see a boat that my work helped make it. I also like working with the other men and women. We work together to get it all done right.”
While each part of every boat is built with care, the carpentry and finish woodwork are a visual representation of the some of the highest levels of quality control within Viking’s operation. It’s Patricia Armata, a 23-year Viking veteran, who gives these parts final approval before they are fitted inside each boat.
The cabinetry, drawers, hanging lockers and many other pieces of finely finished carpentry arrive at Armata’s workbench after countless hours are spent making them perfect. The pieces are sanded, multiple coats of polyurethane finish are applied, and, finally, buffing tools are used to create a picture-perfect, mirrorlike glow.
“I like being the last set of eyes on the woodwork we produce,” says Armata, who leads an eight-person sanding and buffing crew. “If I find a flaw, I mark it and send the piece back for repair or refinishing. That’s also a good time to show the person who finished the piece how they can improve their work.”
This article was originally published in the June 2023 issue.
