Detyen’s Shipyards

Located in Charleston, South Carolina, Detyen’s Shipyards is a formidable player in the world of marine vessel restoration. The company operates two shipyards, one on the Wando River and a larger one on the Cooper. The company boasts one of the largest machine shops in the eastern US that are equipped for efficient and effective ship repair. Detyen’s offers a wide variety of services to both military and commercial ships, including both scheduled and emergency repair, as well as routine production and maintenance.

Detyen’s Shipyard Inc was founded by a merchant mariner by the name of William Detyen in 1962. The original yard operated out of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, on the Wando River, and continues there today. At that time, their main business was vessel repair for the US Navy. Operations were expanded in the 1980s, under the new ownership of D. Loy Stewart, William Detyen’s son-in-law. In association with the Charleston Navy, a second shipyard was opened in order to keep up with the military workload.

Detyen’s main shipyard, the second at Cooper River, operated mainly for the service of the US Navy up until 1996, when the Navy shut down its Charleston base. Afterwards, Detyen’s continued to lease the buildings, including the graving docks, portal cranes and machine shops, and expanded their operations, aggressively pursuing domestic commercial and foreign military markets. They moved their drydock to the Charleston site and focused their efforts on keeping business at capacity. Today, the shipyards house 33 industrial and marine companies, and they maintain an excellent port right on the country’s main eastern shipping lanes.

With the development of the Charleston shipyard, Detyen’s also began to grow their business by incorporating contracts for foreign military vessel repairs and upgrades. To date, they have serviced ships from both Europe and the Middle East, including Turkey, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. After over four decades in business, Detyen’s prides itself on its high standards. They cultivate a focus on both quality and efficiency in their work, as well as integrating cleaner and safer practices, such as the use of water-blasting techniques as an alternative to sand-blasting. Detyen’s Shipyards continues its steady and aggressive growth, maintaining its position as a historically strong company in the field of marine vessel repair.