There was a long tradition of skilled West fjords boat builders who crafted their vessels from the most readily available material, driftwood. There was a ready supply of driftwood, particularly at Hornstrandir, with most well-known boat builders coming from that region and from Jökulfjarðir, even up to our current century. Modern shipbuilding commenced at Skipabraut in Ísafjörður with Bárður G. Tómasson from Torfnes in 1920. Bárður designed and built smaller and larger motorboats in Ísafjörður for quarter of a century, among them the Dísirnar series, five 15 ton boats for the company Njörður hf. Marsellíus Bernharðsson began building motorboats on the beach at Aðalstræti 13 during the Depression. He later established a shipyard at Neðstakaupstaður, where he built a large number of oak vessels. The largest of these was Richard, almost 90 tons. After 1960 the shipyard Skipasmíðastöð Marsellíusar Bernharðssonar constructed steel ships even up to a 300 ton all-purpose fishing vessel. At that time the shipyard employed about 70 men.