Everett Pearson: Fiberglass Pioneer, Boatbuilding Legend
Everett Pearson was a fiberglass boat-building pioneer who co-founded Pearson Yachts and helped to launch the J/Boats sailboat brand. Pearson died Dec. 24, 2017, at the Hope Hospice Center in Providence, Rhode Island. He was 84.
Born in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1955 at Brown University, where he was captain of the football team. He and a cousin, Clinton Pearson, had a long history in business by then, having delivered groceries, sold Christmas trees and more during their younger entrepreneurial years. By the late 1950s, they were building fiberglass dinghies in a garage at a time when wooden hulls still ruled the day.
The pair got their official start in the boating business in 1959, after being approached to build a Carl Alberg design that would become known as the Triton 28. Everett Pearson borrowed $3,000 from a friend of his mother’s who owned a funeral home in Providence. “We took that money and paid $600 to get the boat into the New York Boat Show,” Pearson says in the 1999 book Heart of Glass: Fiberglass Boats and the Men Who Built Them.
Show-goers loved what they saw. On the strength of that show’s purchase orders — for 17 hulls — Pearson Yachts went public as a company a few months later, having turned the $3,000 loan into about $170,000 worth of revenue. The cousins bought the old Herreshoff yard in Bristol, Rhode Island, to start production. Cruising World magazine estimated sales for that year at $750,000 to $1 million, with virtually all of it based on the sheer volume of orders, as the Triton 28 sold to consumers for just $9,700.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 2018 من Soundings.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 2018 من Soundings.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Will Biodiesel Ever Work For Boaters?
San Francisco powers its Red & White sightseeing fleet with biodiesel. Seattle’s King County Water Taxi uses biodiesel to move people across Puget Sound.
Jess Wurzbacher
Jess Wurzbacher holds a master’s degree in tropical coastal management from Newcastle University (U.K.) and a 200-ton Master license. She sailed all over the world as chief scientist and program manager for Seamester and is a PADI scuba instructor with more than 1,000 research and training dives to her credit.
3 Takes On Classic Maine Style
The looks may be classic, but many craftsmen in Maine are giving their Down East builds something extra nowadays, whether working in wood or fiberglass.
Lady Luck
An epic voyage immortalized Felicity Ann and her intrepid skipper. Now this pint-sized yacht is getting another lease on life.
Superlative St. Augustine
St. Augustine, Florida, is one of my favorite cruising destinations. (And I’ve been to quite a few.) It’s pretty, historic, has a timeless ambience and celebrates with festivals year-round. And it has beaches and golf.
The Great Ship WaverTree Returns
A ship saved by a city, a museum saved by a ship
Coronet Around Cape Horn, 1888
Cape Horn, looming in the background of this dramatic work by Russ Kramer, is one of the most dangerous places on Earth to sail. In 1888, without electronic navigation equipment or radio communications, it was even more so.
His Bark And His Bite Were Equally Friendly
What is the world coming to? Up is down. Wrong is right.
Doug Zurn
A native of the Great Lakes region, Doug Zurn grew up sailing and boating.
Go Anywhere, Do Everything
Today’s trawlers — and other seafaring boats with passagemaking qualities in their DNA — provide comfort, efficiency and seaworthiness