“Henriques Yachts” – a company founded by Portuguese immigrants is well-known in the sportfishing boats sector
When, in 1959, Joaquim Henriques traded Murtosa for life in America, there was no indication that his last name would someday shine on yacht hulls (despite his love for the sea and seaweed harvesters). In less than two decades, however, the Portuguese immigrant in New Jersey created a brand of sportfishing boats that became a reference in the sector: “Henriques Yachts” [www. henriquesyachts.com].
“My father never imagined that I could be where I am in the United States,” says Natália Henriques-Costa, co-owner of the company, in an interview with the LUSO-AMERICANO. “His plan was to purchase a small marina for boats, but never to become a boat manufacturer.”
Founded in 1977 in Bayville, New Jersey, “Henriques Yachts” currently makes about ten vessels annually, manufactured for sportfishing. The brand offers several models, with lengths ranging from 30 feet to 35, 42, and 50 (with the latter costing up to 2 million dollars).
Gradually, “Henriques Yachts” acquired prestige in the sector, frequently featured on sportfishing boats publications, such as “Marlin” e “Power and Motor Yacht” magazines. The company founder, Joaquim Henriques, lived in the Ironbound in Newark from 1959 to 1968, then moving to East Quogue, in Long Island, with his wife Maria Henriques, also from Murtosa. Two years later, they returned to New Jersey, this time settling in Toms River. “My father already built boats in Portugal,” says the daughter Natália Henriques-Costa, who was born in New Jersey. “My family was actually known for making seaweed harvesters for the Aveiro Lagoon, a tradition that goes back to my great-grandfather. Of course, they were wooden boats, not the glass fiber boats he would come to make in America.”
In 1990, Natália and her sister Maria Henriques DeMers, in a partnership with the husband of the former (Manuel Costa Jr., from Pardilhó, whom Natália married in 1989), purchased the company from its founder. The trio owns the company to this day.
With 25 employees, “Henriques Yachts” builds its boats from beginning to end. Although the company does not manufacture all components of the boats, it is responsible for assembling them – including the engine and a complex technological structure. “It may take eight or nine months to build a 50-foot long yacht,” states Manuel Costa Jr., who joined the company in 1982 and is currently a co-owner. “Our prices range from 480 thousand to 2 million dollars.”
New or used, the yachts of the Luso-American brand get to the most remote locations in the world, from Saudi Arabia to Portugal, passing by Kuwait, Spain, Cape Verde, Australia, and Bermuda. “We recently had a buyer from Hawaii,” highlights Costa Jr.
Before leaving this world, Joaquim Henriques fulfilled another one of his American dreams: to leave a seaweed harvester boat, made by his own hands, at an American marina, as to immortalize the immigration saga in which many of us (with varying degrees of success) see ourselves.
