Three Generations of Experience

This year Rozema Boat Works is celebrating its 60th anniversary. For three generations, the Rozema family has been building solid, well-crafted boats engineered for a variety of uses and applications.

Rozema Boat Works is the oldest boat-building company in Washington’s Skagit Valley with a rich history and deep ties to the local community. In 1949, Dutch boat builder Alle Rozema founded the company in Bayview, Washington after moving his family from Holland, where he had managed a large shipyard. Rozema was highly trained in lofting and shipbuilding, and used his skills at his new company to combine old-world craftsmanship with exceptional maritime design.

Years later, Alle’s son, Klaas, or Clarence, took over the family business. Clarence eventually passed it on to his sons, Dirk and Jason, who also live in Bayview and are raising their families there. All three generations grew up around ships and spent their childhoods learning the craft of boat building.

Rozema Boat Works is a fixture in the local community and a leader in the Puget Sound maritime industry. The factory employs 14 residents, many of whom have worked for the company for decades. In recent years, the company worked with the town of Bayview and the Department of Ecology to build a new community boat launch, which was completed in 2014.