About Pearson

Clinton and Everett Pearson were cousins who started building fiberglass dinghies in a garage at Seekonk, Massachusetts, in 1955 with $2,000 between them. Their boat was the Triton, a 28 footer drawn by Carl Alberg, and it took $170,000 of orders at the 1959 New York Boat Show, which is the moment production fiberglass cruising boats arrived in the United States. Grumman Allied Industries bought a controlling interest in 1961 for $800,000 and built a 100,000 square foot plant at Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Both cousins were gone by the mid 1960s: Clinton left in 1964 after a fight over the Countess 44 and went on to found Bristol Yachts, Everett left around 1966 and formed Tillotson-Pearson. Bill Shaw arrived from Sparkman & Stephens in 1964, ran design and eventually the division, and drew most of what people now think of as a Pearson, including the Ensign, of which nearly 1,800 were built, and the Pearson 35, which stayed in production fourteen years.

An aging model line, the recession and the 1990 luxury tax finished the company, and Pearson filed for bankruptcy in 1991. The molds were scattered, a 1996 attempt by Cal Pearson Corporation built only a handful of boats, and in 1999 Everett Pearson's TPI Composites bought the trademark. There is therefore no factory and no parts counter behind these boats, which matters less than it might because the fleet is enormous, the designs are plain, and the owner community keeps the knowledge and the drawings alive. Most Pearsons on the brokerage market are forty to fifty five years old and priced accordingly, so they suit an owner who wants a solid, well mannered coastal cruiser cheaply and is willing to do some of the work. Survey the deck core first, then the chainplates and their bedding, then the keel to hull joint, and assume the engine and the wiring have been replaced at least once, or need to be.