Ericson sailboats: a Southern California cruiser-racer built around one long design partnership
Ericson's identity was shaped less by a single founder than by one enduring relationship: across changes of ownership and location, naval architect Bruce King collaborated with the yard on most of its models, giving boats built under several different companies a common design thread. That continuity, more than any single flagship, is what defines the marque.
Origins and ownership
Accounts of Ericson's founding disagree. Good Old Boat traces the company to Costa Mesa, California, around 1963-1965, founded by Ray Handy and Jenkins, both formerly of Columbia Yachts, building on scavenged molds from defunct builders. Practical Sailor's account of the Ericson 32, however, credits Don and Gene Kohlman — two San Francisco Bay sailors who relocated to Irvine, California — with forming the company in 1964 and launching its first boats in 1965. Either way, the earliest lineup was an eclectic mix: a 26-footer, a 32-footer, and, in the Kohlmans' telling, a 32-foot 5.5-Meter keelboat resembling the Columbia Sabre of the era, variously credited to designers Carl Alberg and W.B. Crealock, with sources disagreeing on which of the two drew which boat.
Good Old Boat's history has the young company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy roughly two years in, around 1965, after which it was acquired by Mark Pitman as president and Del Walton as VP of sales; Bruce King joined as primary designer during this period. Ownership passed again by the late 1960s, to Pacific American Industries under chairman Roland Mayotte, and then in 1971 to the CML Group — a purchase both Good Old Boat and Practical Sailor agree on. Under CML, Ericson built popular mid-size cruisers including the 25 and the 38, and Red Cavaney became company president in 1978. In 1984, Eugene "Gene" Kohlman repurchased the company, with his brother also involved in the deal, and the two ran Ericson until 1990, when — amid a recession that Practical Sailor notes coincided with the Gulf War and a new luxury tax on boats — the company failed. Sailing Magazine describes the end as a bankruptcy filing; Good Old Boat describes operations simply ceasing and assets being liquidated.
The boats outlasted the company. Pacific Seacraft bought molds for several Ericson models in 1991 and kept building them, under Ericson names, through 1998 — Good Old Boat's production history lists the 32-3, 34, and 38 as continuing under the designations 333, 350, and 380, though Practical Sailor's own reviews instead describe the Pacific Seacraft-built 34 as "the new Ericson 35."
The designers
Bruce King's imprint runs through most of the marque's history. After joining during the Pitman/Walton years, he introduced the E-30, E-32 Scorpion, E-35-2, E-23, and E-41; by 1966 he and the Kohlman brothers had sea-trialed a foam-core hull plug that became the mold for the Ericson 41, of which 50 were built between 1967 and 1972. King went on to draw a CCA-type Ericson 32 in 1969 that stayed in production until 1978 with well over 500 built, an all-new Ericson 32 in 1985 that lasted four years with more than 700 built, and the Ericson 34-2, launched in 1987 and produced through 1996 — Practical Sailor called it "an up-to-date racer/cruiser" built without IOR bulges but with room for a cruising family. Earlier in the company's life, the founding lineup had drawn on Carl Alberg and W.B. Crealock, though, as noted above, sources dispute which of them designed which early boat.
Construction through the eras
Ericson hulls were solid, hand-laid fiberglass throughout the company's run; decks were cored in end-grain balsa, with plywood substituted under deck-stepped masts, hardware mounts, and other high-stress areas. Starting with King's redesigned 1985 Ericson 32, the yard stiffened its hulls with a molded fiberglass inner liner it called the Tri-Axial Force Grid, absorbing structural elements — the anchor locker, cabin-sole stringers, icebox, and engine beds — that had previously been built from plywood and solid wood, with the external lead ballast keel bolted through the grid itself. Reviewing the 1987 Ericson 34, Sailing Magazine found the yard "justifiably proud" of the system for the hull rigidity and keel-and-rig-load support it provided. Practical Sailor situates the company, based at various points in Costa Mesa, Irvine, and Santa Ana, within a broader "populist shift in boatbuilding" across Southern California driven by cheap resin, hardware, and labor.
Lines and generations
The Ericson 32 name spans three distinct designs and traces the company's whole arc: an early 32-footer in the founding-era lineup, King's CCA-type 1969 design that ran to 1978, and King's stiffened 1985 redesign. The 34 followed its own path — an IOR-influenced Ericson 34 arrived in 1978 alongside the 34T, a shared-hull variant with a different deck, before King's fully distinct Ericson 34-2 replaced it in 1987. Both the 32 and 34 lines continued after 1990 under Pacific Seacraft, whose Ericson-derived hulls stayed in production through 1998.
Who Ericson is for
Ericson's range runs from modest coastal boats up to the offshore-capable 41-footer, unified less by size than by King's long design hand and a racing pedigree that shows up throughout — from the 5.5-Meter-inspired early 32 to the IOR-influenced 1978 34 — tempered in King's mature designs by real attention to cruising-family accommodations. Buyers drawn to a Southern California-built cruiser-racer with a documented, single-designer lineage, rather than one particular flagship model, are Ericson's natural audience.
