Bristol sailboats: a Rhode Island yard built on the Pearson family's early fiberglass pioneering
Bristol Yachts traces its roots to the same Pearson family that helped launch the American fiberglass sailboat industry. Built in Bristol, Rhode Island, from the mid-1960s through 1997, Bristol produced hand-finished cruisers and cruiser-racers under a short list of respected New England designers, most notably Carl Alberg, Ted Hood, and Halsey Herreshoff.
Origins and ownership
Clint Pearson's boatbuilding career began in 1956, when he, his cousin Everett Pearson, and Fred Heald founded Pearson Yachts. Pearson's 28-foot-six-inch Triton is often credited with jump-starting the fiberglass sailboat industry. Around 1960-61, the cousins sold a controlling interest in the company to Grumman. Clint left Pearson Yachts in 1964, bought out Sailstar Yachts, and set up shop at the former Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. property in Bristol, Rhode Island — the start of what became Bristol Yachts, with the Bristol name formalized in the mid-1960s. Everett left Pearson two years after Clint and, with Neil Tillotson, formed Tillotson-Pearson Industries in nearby Warren. Clint served as founder and chairman of both the Pearson Yacht Company and Bristol Yachts; across a career spanning both companies he built more than 20,000 boats. Bristol Yachts closed in 1997, having built approximately 3,600 boats of its own.
The designers
Bristol's first boats carried designs by Carl Alberg and Halsey Herreshoff — fitting company for a yard that started on ground once occupied by the Herreshoff Manufacturing Co., since Herreshoff was a grandson of Nathanael Herreshoff. Alberg drew the Bristol 27, the yard's first design; Herreshoff's early credits include the 26 and the 34. For the 32-footer, Clint turned to Ted Hood, whose work at Bristol — and later the 39/40, 35.5, and 38.8, among others — carried a sensibility Good Old Boat traced to the aesthetics of late-era wooden boats: their cabintops, sheerlines, and the curves of stems and counters. Dieter Empacher, Hood's chief draftsman through the 1960s and '70s, worked alongside him during this period.
Construction through the eras
Bristol hulls of the 1960s and '70s were solid fiberglass laminate below the waterline, with balsa reserved for the deck as core material. Before the molded fiberglass liner became standard practice across the industry, Bristol's interior furniture was tabbed directly to the hull — a detail that leaves much of the structure open for inspection today. At the hull-to-deck joint, the deck met an inward-turning six- to seven-inch flange on the hull, sealed with a permanently elastic compound and reinforced with through-bolts, a detail that shows up consistently across the line, from the early 32 to the later 35.5. Rather than fiberglass-molded components trimmed in wood, Bristol built up its interiors from plywood and solid wood — mahogany more often than teak, in Practical Sailor's account. Later hulls, such as the 40, dispensed with a bolt-on external keel in favor of a molded keel cavity filled with lead. Practical Sailor traced a shift in the brand's market position over the years: the earliest Bristols were aimed at the mass market and equipped accordingly, while later boats moved toward the middle-to-upper end of the production and semi-custom market, with finish and systems to match.
Lines and generations
The Bristol 39 was among the line's first models, entering production in 1966. Beginning with 1972 models it was rechristened the Bristol 40; Practical Sailor called the 39 and 40 basically the same boat, despite specifications showing the 40 as nearly a foot longer. About 150 Bristol 40s were built, not counting the smaller number of 39s that preceded it. A full-keel Bristol 40 won the 1983 Marion-Bermuda Race. That same year, the 40 was superseded by the Bristol 38.8, a faster, roomier, stiffer, and more modern Ted Hood cruiser/racer. Later decades brought larger, center-cockpit cruising designs to the range, including the 41.1, introduced in 1981 with a keel/centerboard configuration suited to shoal-draft cruising grounds such as the Bahamas.
Who Bristol is for
Bristol suits buyers drawn to hand-finished, traditionally built New England cruisers rather than high-volume interiors: the earlier Alberg- and Hood-designed boats for classic CCA-rule-era lines and solid, simply built hulls; the later Hood-designed 38.8 and larger center-cockpit models for buyers who want a more modern rig and layout without leaving the yard's construction standards behind. The 40's Marion-Bermuda win is a reminder that even the traditional-hulled models were capable offshore performers, not just coastal cruisers.
