About us
About Essential Shipyard Industries
Two yards, 30+ tradespeople, one written standard
About Essential Shipyard Industries
Essential Shipyard Industries is a full-service boatyard and marine supply business with two yards on the Salish Sea: ESI North on Skyline Way in Anacortes and ESI South on McGlinn Island in La Conner. Tens of tradesmen and craftsmen — technicians, painters, composites specialists, fabricators, cabinetmakers, and store staff — keep pleasure and commercial vessels from the San Juans to Puget Sound running, repaired, and ready.
What we do
Haul-outs to 100 tons, bottom paint and full topside refinishing in our own paint booth, fiberglass and composite repair, engine repowers as a Gold-Level Certified Yanmar dealer, marine electrical and LiFePO4/Victron systems, in-house metal fabrication and custom marine cabinetry, and two retail stores stocked with the paint, batteries, electrical, and tackle you actually need. 24/7 emergency haul-out at (360) 610-7577.
Our people
We’ve grown by two routes: bringing in senior experts from leading marine companies, and building our own people through Essential Shipyard University. The result is a crew where the person handling your repower, your topside paint, or your electrical system has done it many times before, to a written standard.
How we train
We wrote the book on marine trades training — literally. Essential Shipyard University is our in-house training and certification program, and every ESI employee starts there. Production Tech 1, our Kaizen and lean production course, is mandatory before anyone’s first day; leads go on to Production Tech 2. From there the trade ladders run deep: a six-level composites program from fundamentals and safety through repair, mold-making, infusion, prepreg, and autoclave QA; marine electrical and LiFePO4 conversion; repower consulting and installation with written hard-pass modules; MFD and NMEA 2000 installation; shaft, prop, and haul-out technician courses; diesel and hydronic heater installation. Every course ends in certification and is written as documented procedure. Technicians work from structured engine survey and factory-interval service checklists for Yanmar, Volvo Penta, and Cummins, so the record of what was done on your boat is as complete as the work itself.
How we got here
ESI started as a mobile repair service around the Port of Friday Harbor, opened a service outlet at the historic Jensen’s Boatyard in 2022, expanded to the Anacortes shipyard in 2023, and added the La Conner yard after that. Founders Jason and Emily Knott still run the company; Jason has worked on boats for more than twenty years — charter fleets, crab and fishing boats — and invented the SolidNav electric sailboat motor in the early 2000s.
Standards
Northwest Marine Trade Association member. ABYC member — one of several standards we work to. Certified Hempel, Sea Hawk, and GlideCoat Pro applicator. Gold-Level Certified Yanmar dealer. Authorized Garmin and Raymarine dealer. Victron Energy dealer.
Free for every customer
A complimentary 18-point inspection
An expert technician tests the boat’s systems and writes up every point as Excellent, Good, Monitor, Attention or Critical — a written report telling you what is sound, what to keep an eye on, and what has to be dealt with before she goes back in the water. Free with every job.
EXCELLENT
GOOD
MONITOR
ATTENTION
CRITICAL
The yards from the air
Two yards on the Salish Sea
ESI South sits at the south end of Swinomish Channel on McGlinn Island, leased from the Swinomish Nation. Covered work sheds, open hard standing, and the 100-ton travel lift — the whole operation is visible from the water on the way past.
ESI North is on Skyline Way in Anacortes. Between the two we run more than 30 tradespeople, two marine supply stores, and haul-out around the clock.
Where we work
Puget Sound, the San Juans and the whole of the Salish Sea
ESI North in Anacortes and ESI South on the Swinomish Channel at La Conner sit in the middle of the cruising ground rather than at the end of it. Boats come to us from the length of Puget Sound, down from British Columbia and out of the San Juan Islands — and they sit in the same water our coatings are tested in, with the same currents, the same fouling pressure and the same season our customers run in.
The length of Puget Sound
Everett is a short run and Seattle an easy one, and boats come down from British Columbia as well. Where a vessel should not make the passage on its own bottom, we move it overland — two hydraulic trailers, 60‑ton and 200‑ton, and crews who run them.
The San Juan Islands
We still service the islands, and they are our own back yard. An island boat is hauled, worked and back in the water without a long delivery at either end of the job.
Tribal fisheries
ESI South leases from the Swinomish Nation at McGlinn Island. We haul and maintain tribal fishing vessels alongside the cruising fleet, on the same standard and the same schedule discipline.
Essential Shipyard 