Express sailboats: one name across five unrelated builders
On the used-sailboat market, "Express" names at least five unrelated builders rather than one manufacturer. Alsberg Brothers Boatworks, a Santa Cruz, California yard open from 1982 to 1988, built the ultralight Express 27, 34, and 37 to Carl Schumacher designs. Alerion Yachts, founded in 1988 by Connecticut sailor Ralph Schacter, built the very different Alerion Express daysailers, first at Holby Marine and then at Tillotson-Pearson in Rhode Island. Goman Boat Limited and its successor, Express Yachting, built the Ontario-made Express 30 and 35. A Finnish yard built the unrelated Finn Express 64 and 83, and a small American builder, New Bombay Trading Co., built the little-documented Bombay Express 26. Schumacher designed for both Alsberg Brothers and, years later, Schacter — but the five companies otherwise share no ownership, factory, or model line.
Origins and ownership
Terry and Peter Alsberg founded Alsberg Brothers Boatworks in Santa Cruz in 1982. Terry, schooled under builder Ron Moore, teamed with Carl Schumacher on their first boat, the Express 27 — a prototype Alsberg recalled first sailing in June 1981 — and by 1988 was also building the Express 34, a scaled-down version of the later Express 37. Over roughly six years the yard built around 200 hulls by Alsberg's own count, before discovering its boats had been badly underpriced and folding into bankruptcy.
Alerion Yachts began differently. In 1989, Ralph Schacter, a sailor from Southport, Connecticut, hired Schumacher — by then known for the Express 27 — to design a boat he could easily singlehand. Schacter built the first boat, Moonrise, in Stuart, Florida, then partnered with Holby Marine of Bristol, Rhode Island, to build it on a production basis; Holby built seven boats in 1990 before selling the molds to Tillotson-Pearson Industries the following spring. Soundings credits Schacter himself with building six boats before selling the mold to "TCI Composites" in Warren, Rhode Island — likely the same Tillotson-Pearson operation under a garbled name. Either way, Tillotson-Pearson and its successors have built more than 600 Alerion Express boats since.
In the early 1980s, C&C Yachts alumni Bill Goman and Steve Killing formed Goman Boat Limited in Midland, Ontario, merging with Express Yachts in 1985 to form Express Yachting. In Finland, Ron Holland designed the Finn Express 64, built by Fibå-Vene, while Eivind Still designed the smaller Finn Express 83, built between 1981 and 1986. New Bombay Trading Co. built the Bombay Express 26, designed by Walter H. Scott, in the late 1970s; the design later formed the basis of Island Packet's first model.
The designers
Carl Schumacher, a structural engineer by training, designed both the Alsberg Brothers' Express 27 and, years later, the original Alerion Express — commissioned to combine a traditional appearance with modern materials and "go-fast" thinking, per Practical Sailor. The Alerion Express moved on from Schumacher's hand in 1994, when Tillotson-Pearson president Everett Pearson brought in Garry Hoyt, who changed the boat's keel to a fin-and-bulb shape.
Steve Killing, who left C&C Yachts alongside Goman in 1979, designed the Express 30 and 35; he later contributed to six America's Cup campaigns. Finland's two Express designs had separate designers, Ron Holland on the 64 and Eivind Still on the 83, and the Bombay Express 26 was designed by Walter H. Scott.
Construction through the eras
Alsberg Brothers cored its hulls with Klegecel foam and decks with balsa, finished with an NPG gelcoat borrowed from the hot-tub industry for its gloss retention; Alsberg said the yard went nearly seven years and roughly 200 hulls without a single blister. The flagship Express 37 went further, built to scantlings consistent with American Bureau of Shipping and Lloyds Register standards, with a hand-laid, vacuum-bagged, balsa-cored hull using AME 4000 vinylester resin in its base layer, according to Practical Sailor. Early 37 hulls had documented weak points — deck flexing under loaded genoa tracks, insufficient bulkhead tabbing, and mast cracking near a hydraulic hose fitting — addressed within the production run, from roughly hull No. 20 onward, with beefed-up bulkheads and reinforced hardware.
Tillotson-Pearson built the Alerion Express with a vacuum-bagged, balsa-cored hull and deck and a vinylester outer layer to deter blistering, backed by TPI's standard 10-year blister warranty; the move to Tillotson-Pearson construction also shed several hundred pounds from the earlier Holby-built boats, per TPI's chief engineer.
Goman Boat Limited and Express Yachting built the Express 30 and 35 in fiberglass over a full balsa core, with longitudinal stringers and a computer-optimized keel foil on the 35. The Finn Express 64 was built of GRP with cast-iron ballast; the Bombay Express 26 was fiberglass with a stub/centerboard keel.
Lines and generations
Five separate rosters carry the Express name. Alsberg Brothers built the Express 27 (from 1982), the Express 34 (by 1988), and the Express 37 (from late 1984), later joined by a Mark II update — of roughly 65 Express 37s built, per Practical Sailor and the class association (Latitude 38 counted 63), just 10 were Mark IIs. Alerion Yachts' range grew from the original Alerion Express 28 into the smaller 19 and 20 and the larger 33 and 38 through the 1990s; its Alerion Express 20 should not be confused with an earlier, unrelated Express 20 that Goman Boat Limited built and later dropped from production before adopting the Express name for its 30 and 35. That Ontario roster centered on the Express 30, introduced in November 1981 and joined by a low-freeboard racing variant, the 30M, and the Express 35, launched in 1984. Finland's Finn Express line paired the smaller 64 with the larger 83, built 1981-1986. The Bombay Express 26, from the late 1970s, stands alone, without related models.
Who Express is for
An "Express"-badged boat rewards a buyer who checks the builder before shopping the name, because the five lineages suit five different temperaments. Alsberg Brothers' racers reward someone chasing outright speed on a hull two structural engineers, Alsberg and Schumacher, built with close attention to weight and strength. The Alerion Express suits a different sensibility: Perry Design Review traced its looks straight to Nathanael Herreshoff's 1916 Alerion, and its balsa-cored, blister-warrantied construction favors comfort and continuity over raw performance. Goman Boat Limited and Express Yachting's Ontario boats split the difference — race-cruisers designed by Killing for owners who, in his own words, wanted "performance, comfort and grace" in one hull. The Finn Express pair are imported curiosities from the same decade as the Ontario boats, and the Bombay Express 26 is mostly a footnote to Island Packet's own origin story.
