Courtesy Delta Marine Before Ivor Jones founded Delta Marine (Seattle, Washington) in 1967 with his brother Jack, he made his name on the water as a champion highspeed powerboat racer.
Fiberglass boatbuilding started small with dinghies, skiffs, and runabouts—low stakes structures that early adopters could experiment on as they pushed the structural limitations of the new material. Big boats were an expensive gamble in those early days before strategies to assure strength and stiffness in composite hulls were standardized. But even as understanding of fiber-to-resin ratios, stringer floor structures, and laminate schedules made larger glass boats possible, anxiety remained about the upper limits.
Brothers Ivor and Jack Jones started small and fast as champion drivers in powerboat races, but by the time they founded Delta Marine (Seattle, Washington) in 1967, they started building ever-larger fiberglass boats for demanding service in the commercial fisheries. By the late 1970s, they’d built hundreds of hulls and created the Delta 58, which became a benchmark model in Alaska’s fishing fleet. And they kept on growing, even as the fishing industry contracted.
Courtesy Delta Marine Ivor Jones captaining the iconic fiberglass fishing boat Trisha Marie, named after his daughter.
In the 1970s, they started building some yachts based on the able workboat hulls they knew so well, and by the 1980s, they were building larger, more luxurious yachts than ever, including the 151′ fiberglass Sally Ann launched in 1996.
“You can really build a vessel ay any size, 150 feet up to 300 feet,” Ivor Jones said of fiberglass construction in Dan Spurr’s 2000 history of composite boatbuilding, Heart of Glass. But by the mid-2000s, Delta had embraced metal construction for their superyachts including their largest, the 240′ (73.1m) Laurel, which launched in 2006 fitted with a lightweight composite superstructure. Delta remains one of the few yards in the United States with the capacity to build new superyachts as that industry has largely shifted to Europe and Asia.
Courtesy Delta Marine Brothers Jack and Ivor Jones founded and ran Delta Marine together. Ivor oversaw shop-floor management through the yard’s remarkable growth into the superyacht and workboat colossus it is today.
Ivor Jones died July 28, 2025, at 86 years old. His leadership and work ethic were essential to Delta’s success since its founding. He oversaw shopfloor operations and workforce management as the yard grew into a 25-acre campus with 300,000 square feet of covered build shops on the Duwamish River. During his lifetime, Delta built over 600 commercial vessels and 52 luxury yachts. The yard continues operations under the direction of a new generation of Jones family managers.
“Ivor led with heart, grit, and a deep sense of responsibility to his craft, his team, and his family. The culture he created at Delta is rooted in integrity, care, and relentless dedication,” said Michelle Jones, vice president of Delta Marine. “We are committed to honoring that legacy in everything we do.”
