“If you are not familiar with TRINITY – here is a brief history –
Operating shipyards in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Gulfport, Mississippi, Trinity Yachts was an American luxury motor yacht builder capable of constructing superyachts in aluminium and steel up to 123 metres in length.
Trinity Yachts’ roots lie in the commercial and military shipyard Halter Marine in New Orleans, which today is still one of the builder’s two facilities. In the 1970s, Olympic sailor John Dane III went to work for Halter Marine and founded Trinity Yachts in 1988; his mission was to expand the shipyard’s operations into the luxury motor yacht sector. In 2000, Trinity Yachts was acquired by John Dane along with partners Billy Smith and Felix Sabates, owner of Victory Lane Enterprises.
The shipyard was highly successful, attracting owners from all over the world, including – thanks to Sabates’ influence – many involved in high-profile motor sports. In the early 2000’s, Trinity’s order book of superyacht projects was in the double digits. Despite the devastation wreaked on the New Orleans shipyard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which led to the opening of the Gulfport facility, and the global economic downturn of 2008, Trinity Yachts continued to be one of the leading superyacht builders in the U.S.
In the years that followed, difficulties caused by amongst other things exchange rate fluctuations, made selling custom built steel and alluminium yachts to an already saturated market outside the U.S.A. very difficult. The US market had an appetite seemingly only for faster semi-displacement, shallow draft yachts built in GRP, thus leaving Trinity, a once thriving business without a market place.
Trinity had an excellent run for about 20 years and delivered 62 hulls, but the new yacht construction ceased in 2016.
