Alerion sailboats: a Herreshoff-inspired daysailer line carried by four different builders
Alerion sailboats trace their look to a century-old Herreshoff daysailer, but the brand is a late-twentieth-century creation that has passed through a string of different owners and builders since. What holds the lineup together is less a single company than a design idea — Nathanael Herreshoff's traditional lines married to modern construction — carried forward first by a Connecticut sailor, then by a succession of production builders.
Origins and ownership
In the late 1980s, Southport, Connecticut sailor Ralph Schacter set out to build a boat he could easily single-hand. He commissioned California naval architect Carl Schumacher to design it, and the result was the Alerion Express 28 sloop — a boat whose aesthetic Schumacher modeled on Nathanael Herreshoff's 1912 daysailer Alerion, paired with a modern fin keel and spade rudder. Per Carl Schumacher's son, Sutter Schumacher, the AE28 began as a custom commission for Schacter; it was Schacter himself who foresaw the market for a production version, and with his support and blessing the molds were made. Schacter built the first boat, named Moonrise, in Stuart, Florida, then five more, before the design moved into production: Holby Marine of Bristol, Rhode Island built the first seven hulls in 1990, and the molds passed to Tillotson-Pearson Industries (TPI) that same year. By late 1992, roughly 25 Alerion-Expresses had been built.
US Watercraft later built and sold the Alerion line alongside its True North, North Rip, C&C 30, Redline 41, and certain J/Boat racing designs. When US Watercraft entered receivership in the summer of 2017, boatbuilder Peter Johnstone — freshly named head of product development at his father Bob Johnstone's MJM Yachts — bought Alerion Yachts out of bankruptcy at a Rhode Island receivership auction that November, as the auction's sole bidder. Johnstone later said he had been privileged to play a role in the brand's turnaround over the two years he owned it. In a sale announced in January 2020, Peter Eastman, owner of Eastman Boats and Howard Boats, acquired Alerion Yachts from Johnstone, with plans to extend the brand across new models and a broader size range. Eastman said he had loved Alerion Yachts since their inception in 1986.
The designers
Carl Schumacher, the AE28's designer, died in February 2002 at 52; Ralph Schacter, the sailor whose commission started it all, later died at 78, of heart-related causes. Because of the number of builder changes over the years, Schumacher's family has said it no longer receives design royalties for the Alerion Express 28.
Herreshoff's connection to the brand runs deeper than Schumacher's design. Nathanael G. Herreshoff drew the original 26-foot mahogany-planked Alerion in 1912 for his own use; it now resides in the Mystic Seaport Museum. Decades later, Halsey Herreshoff built about a dozen 25-foot fiberglass versions of the boat in the 1970s, and in the early 2000s Herreshoff Designs contracted Carroll Marine to build a production Alerion 26 — a separate line from the Schumacher-designed Express. The most recent design partnership came in 2016, when Langan Design Partners, LLC worked with US Watercraft on the Alerion Sport 30, with a design brief calling for performance and day-sailing characteristics that still fit the Alerion brand's styling.
Construction through the eras
Construction has changed with the builders. Under TPI, the Alerion-Express hull and deck were vacuum-bagged end-grain balsa faced with uni- and bi-directional glass and vinylester resin to deter osmotic blistering, through-bolted and bonded with 3M 5200, and reinforced with a solid fiberglass floor over the external lead keel; the rudder stock and prop shaft were carbon fiber. TPI said its construction methods shaved several hundred pounds off the earlier Holby-built hulls, and exterior teak came sanded and oiled.
Carroll Marine, building the Herreshoff-branded Alerion 26 for Herreshoff Designs, used a different recipe: Klegecell-cored topsides over a solid fiberglass bottom, a balsa-cored deck, vinylester resin throughout, and NPG gelcoat, with an external lead keel epoxy-coated and through-bolted. Teak coamings, seats, and cockpit sole were finished with a standard oil, in keeping with the brand's traditional detailing.
US Watercraft, building the Sport 30 with Langan Design Partners, moved to resin infusion: a balsa-cored hull and foam-cored deck, both resin-infused, stiffened with a carbon-fiber-reinforced composite grid glued into the hull. That is a different builder and a different era from the TPI-built Express, not a continuation of the same process. Most recently, under Eastman, Alerion has continued with builder Randy Borges, whom Eastman called unmatched in quality on boats under 42 feet; the build team assembled at the time of the 2020 acquisition carried 15 to 20 years of Alerion-specific experience.
Lines and generations
The lineup spans three loose families. The Express series — Express 28, Express 33, Express 20 — carries Schumacher's original daysailer profile forward at different sizes. The Alerion 26, produced under Herreshoff Designs and built by Carroll Marine in the early 2000s, is a separate line styled off Herreshoff's 1912 original rather than Schumacher's Express. The Sport series — Sport 30 and Sport 33 — reflects the US Watercraft-era shift toward performance day-sailing; the Sport 30 itself was designed to slot between the existing Alerion 28 and Alerion 33. The range has also included larger models, up to a 41-footer. At the time of the 2017 sale, Peter Johnstone described the brand as having five great models that would be hard to improve upon.
Who Alerion is for
Alerion suits sailors drawn to a traditional daysailer profile — teak coamings, oval ports, swept overhangs — built with modern fin keels, spade rudders, and, depending on era, carbon-fiber hardware below the waterline rather than a museum-piece full keel. The brand rewards buyers who want a boat that carries Herreshoff's original lines but sails like a contemporary performance daysailer, whether that means a TPI-era Express, a Herreshoff-branded 26, or a US Watercraft-era Sport model.
