On Hallowed Ground - C&C...

38 Professional BoatBuilder

Island, where he could be near the America’s Cup, and he got a job building the 12-Meter sloops cam-paigned at that time. “Once I got here, it was Mecca,” he says. He worked at Newport Offshore shipyard on the city waterfront, beginning at ground level. “I started out working in the stock-room and helped out in the building program after 3:30,” Borges remem-bers. “They were working all hours of the day. I worked my way into just about everything: welding, plating, lofting, and painting.… We used to work all night. Go to sleep, get up, and work some more. You were tired and sore, but it was cool building boats for the USA. It was still a Corinthian event back then. Shortly after we lost the Cup, I went to work next door for Williams & Manchester Shipyard building 12-Meters for the New York Yacht Club challenge in

Founded 25 years ago by Randy Borges as a J/24 (7.3m) and one-

design speed shop, his Waterline Systems has grown and changed shapes into a multi-dimensional com-pany called USWatercraft. It occupies the same Warren, Rhode Island, plant built in 1972 by Everett Pearson and TPI, and like those forerunners, Borges has amassed a variety of brands that allows the company to play to the strengths of the market: new and used boats, sail and power, even some commercial work. Early last summer I visited USWatercraft’s several facilities to learn more.

Humble Origins: Mobile J/24 Speed Shop Randy Borges, 52, grew up in Upstate New York. He spent his early days as a competitive sailor with a job in a boatyard. In 1982 his love of sail-ing lured him to Newport, Rhode

On Hallowed GroundUSWatercraft is assembling a diverse group of brands on an existing solid foundation of former Rhode Island boatbuilders, particularly the Pearson family’s companies.

Text and photographsby Dan Spurr

(except where noted)

feBruary/March 2014 39

grew into a viable business, thanks in part to the huge presence of one-design sailboats in Newport and the surrounding area. In 1988 the busi-ness was formalized with partners Tim Murray and Kevin Hudner under the name Waterline Systems. He and his partners specialized in Grand Prix and one-design yachts; in addition to various J Boat models, he targeted various classes: the Farr 40 (12.2m), Mumm 30 (9.1m), and smaller boats like the 210, Etchells, and Rhodes 19 (5.8m). Waterline Systems earned a good reputation, and serious sailors began seeking it out. After initially traveling to customers’ boats, the company soon rented a 25' x 50 ' (7.6m x 15.2m) shop in a Middletown, Rhode Island, industrial park. “Actually,” Borges says only half joking, “we wanted to work on our trucks and figured we could justify the cost of renting the space if we worked on boats on the side to pay the rent.” Through the fairing and optimizing work, Waterline Systems developed strong relationships with two groups that would prove pivotal in its devel-opment: the class associations that govern one-design boats, and the builders. The value of those relation-ships recently proved itself yet again

Australia. I spent two years with the America II syndicate.” After the Cup, he returned to Newport and continued working for Williams & Manchester. For the first eight or 10 years he didn’t own a car, living in downtown Newport and walking to work; he was where he wanted to be and happy. Racing was in his blood and he found a demand for his services optimizing J/24s, which among other jobs meant a return to sanding bottoms. “It started out as a hobby,” he says, but soon

Randall “Dunes” Borges, president of USWatercraft, celebrates the christening of the first Alerion 41 (12.5m).

A J/22 (6.9m) undergoes repairs to its keel at USWatercraft’s Melville plant in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Begun as a speed shop optimizing one-design sailboats for racing, the company still performs those services, mostly at this location, once used by Everett Pearson and TPI for making wind turbine blades.

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and J/80 (22.5' /6.9m and 26.3' /8m) for example—there was still some demand, and therein Randy Borges saw an opportunity to expand his business. Borges: “People still wanted boats, and neither TPI nor J Boats wanted short production runs. I lobbied hard and worked out a deal with Jeff Johnstone and then worked with Mark Pearson [Everett’s son] to get the molds and build knowledge. That was in 2000. We started boatbuilding on Franklin St. in Bristol where Clint Pearson’s Bristol Yachts had once been. We’d build five or 10 at a time. J Boats gave us an amazing opportunity.” When J/22 sales also began to slow, Waterline Systems worked the same deal as it had with the J/24, and so now was building two models on demand. Last year it delivered 14 new J/22s to the Sail Newport program, and 10 more to the College of

in which every sailor seemingly had an equal chance to win, all tightly regulated by the J/24 Class Asso-ciation. More than 5,000 units were built on three continents. As the com-pany introduced new models, capital-izing on the same business plan, sales of the J/24 gradually declined to the point that production ceased. Production in the U.S., it should be noted, had always been by TPI; for the Johnstone family (Rod and Bob’s sons were integrated into manage-ment as they came of age) and Everett Pearson, it was a mutually attractive alliance. The Johnstones had a reputable builder of their boats without having to invest in a plant and dozens of employees; and the Pearsons didn’t have to get involved in marketing and sales. Though the popularity of the J/24 gave way to newer models—the J/22

when the company was commis-sioned to optimize the America’s Cup boat NZ3 and the magnificent J-class Hanuman.

A Natural Evolution The J/24 is one of the most suc-cessful keelboats ever built. Designed by Rod Johnstone and first launched in 1976, brother Bob Johnstone mar-keted the boat brilliantly. (For a pro-file of J Boats, see “J Is for Johnstone,” PBB No. 98). A former executive with AMF (which built the legendary Sunfish and Sailfish), Bob Johnstone sold the J/24 as an affordable small one-design keelboat yacht with sleep-ing accommodations for four and space for a portable toilet and mini-galley so skippers could also take the family overnighting. But its main appeal was the emergence of fleets around the country and competition

Left—The J/24 (7.3m) is purportedly the largest one-design keelboat class in the world, numbering more than 5,000. The boats are raced hard in extremely competitive fleets worldwide. Collisions are commonplace, providing USWatercraft with a seemingly endless supply of repairwork. Right—An Alerion Express 28 (8.5m) on the shop floor in Warren, Rhode Island. The Carl Schumacher design is generally credited with starting the gentleman’s daysailer genre of simple, elegant keelboats.

To fully appreciate how Randy Borges and his team arrived where they are today, it helps to know something about USWatercraft’s Rhode Island lineage—physical and experiential. Pearson Yachts was founded in Bristol, Rhode Island, in 1956 by cousins Clinton and Everett Pearson, and Everett’s fellow Brown University alumnus Fred Heald. Their first models were the Cub dinghy, Plebe daysailer, four runabouts called the Mariner, Mate, Maiden, and Marauder, and in 1959, the Carl Alberg–designed 28' 6" (8.7m) Triton auxiliary sailboat, an industry game changer that helped popularize fiberglass as a viable material in larger boats. Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation bought controlling interest in Pearson Yachts in 1960. Four years later, Clint Pearson left to buy a small company called Sailstar Boat (which eventually became Bristol Yachts). In 1966 Everett left as well; he bought a small company called Bergson Products that was making fiberglass cas-kets, and he soon diversified into industrial products.

Before long he was commissioned to build a 58' (17.7m) Boothbay Challenger sailing yacht, so he took a crew to the Hodgdon Brothers yard in East Boothbay, Maine, owned then by Neil Tillotson, who’d made a successful business manufacturing latex gloves. Tillotson had an apartment overlooking the boatyard, and soon he and Pearson became friends, and eventually partners in Tillotson-Pearson Industries. Back in Warren, Rhode Island, Pearson built a state-of-the-art boatbuilding plant, and as soon as his no-compete clause with Grumman expired, he began building Rampage sportfishermen, Freedom Yachts sailboats for Garry Hoyt, Alden sailing yachts, Lagoon cruising cata-marans for French builder Jeanneau, Sundeer cruising monohulls for Dashew Offshore, and literally thousands of J Boats. But he didn’t confine his activities to marine: indeed, he became a major producer of 27' –65' (8.3m–19.8m) wind turbine blades for Kenetech Windpower (San Francisco, California), airport people movers, lighting

The Pearson Legacy


trimming the sail correctly. He tested the concept by inviting nonsailors to get in the boat and then timing how long it took them to take off with wind in the sail. After selling the Freedom line of unstayed sloops and cat-ketches, and moving on from the Expo Solar Sailer, he arranged with TPI to market the Alerion Express, a 28' (8.5m) so-called gentleman’s daysailer. TPI had bought the rights to it from Holby Marine (Bristol, Rhode Island), which had produced i t on a limited basis after a customer in Connecticut com-missioned the Cali fornia yacht designer Carl Schumacher to update the original, somewhat smaller Nathanael Herreshoff–designed Alerion.

today is essentially an umbrella organization for a number of other businesses, one of which is Waterline Systems.

Other Brands Garry Hoyt has been one of the most innovative and freethinking designers and developers in the sail-ing industry. The one-time marketing executive and World Sunfish cham-pion had founded Freedom Yachts in the late 1970s because he strongly believed that learning to sail could be made simpler. The Expo Solar Sailer, mentioned in the sidebar below, has a large dial in front of the cockpit that integrates the wind direction and the angle of the boom, with different color sectors that guide the skipper in

Charleston in South Carolina. It’s now the licensed builder for the J/22, J/24, J/80, J/105, Farr 30, and Farr 40. As part of the licensing agreement with J Boats it began to supply replacement parts for the 8,000-plus existing boats. If an owner broke a rudder, he called Waterline Systems and could have a replacement in time for the next race. “Bow rails for J/24s seem to go pretty fast.” Borges chuckles. Indeed, the start line for a large fleet gets pretty crazy, with skippers banging into each other as if driving bumper cars in an amusement park. Waterline Systems now has access to the records for all the TPI-built J Boats ever built, including laminate specifications, engineering changes, and original bills of materials. It also acquired all the old J Boat tooling. As part of its arrangement with J Boats, a new company name had to be chosen. “When I lobbied Jeff Johnstone to build the J/24,” Borges says, “he was a little leery of having it built by Waterline Systems, which is known as a raceboat optimizer. He said, ‘Why don’t you think about coming up with another name?’ I came up with USWatercraft. He said, ‘That sounds like you’ve got greater ambitions than just building J/24s.’ Who knew?!” Who knew indeed. USWatercraft

poles, bridge components, electric-car bodies, cooling towers, Swimex hydrotherapy pools, bus bodies, tractor trailers, portable toilets, and rides for Walt Disney’s amusement parks. It was a fabulous operation, advanc-ing composites technology and exporting it to numerous other industries. Pearson was a longtime advocate of sandwich con-struction utilizing end-grain balsa as a core between fiberglass skins. In fact, he claims to have been the first to cut balsa cross-grain in his shop, even before Baltek (Greensboro, North Carolina), the company that pio-neered its application in marine and other industries. A principal advantage of end-grain balsa core, cut into small squares and connected with other squares on a light scrim, is limiting the wicking of moisture through-out the core should one of the skins be damaged and allow water to enter. Then in 1993 Pearson made a deal with Seemann Composites (Gulfport, Mississippi) to market and license SCRIMP (Seemann Composites Resin Infusion Molding

Process), which was adopted in the Pearson shop and is employed to this day at the Warren plant. The then- patented process employs vacuum to draw resin into reinforcements sealed in an airtight bag. The result: a near-ideal 70:30 fiber-to-resin ratio, and virtual elimina-tion of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) from the workplace. The first boat TPI infused was Garry Hoyt’s Expo Solar Sailer. In 1999 Pearson was able to buy back the name Pearson Yachts from investors (the name had been passed along to various parties after Grumman divested itself of boatbuilding in 1986). Everett’s son, Mark Pearson, who’d cut his composites teeth, as it were, at TPI, oversaw the development of the True North 38 powerboat before leaving to start Pearson Pilings in 2005 with his father. That company manufactures fiberglass pilings for docks, piers, homes, and other structures. That’s the short version, but provides important con-text for the emergence of Borges and his current activi-ties on the Pearson property in Warren. —Dan Spurr

USWatercraft continues to invest in product development. The most recent Alerion model is the 41, introduced in 2013. U

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to move up.” Hence the new 50, designed by Bill Langan and the in-house team that includes Cam Church. The TN 50 is powered by twin 435-hp (326-kW) Volvo Penta IPS600 diesels incorporating the new Volvo Penta Glass Cockpit system, a combination of engine monitoring and navigation information displayed in one place. Seizing another opportunity, USWatercraft acquired North Rip, which builds a 21' (6.4m) center- console sportfisherman. A 29' (8.8m) is scheduled for introduction at boat shows in 2014. Weatherby is responsi-ble for the continued development of the line and is naturally enthusiastic: “It’s a sportfish boat with the versatil-ity to go with the marketplace,” he says. “It’s a hard-core fishing boat, bone dry, and with nice flare. It’s just not going to get wet. We can also outfit it with the amenities families want because they are on board 80% of the time. You can still catch a tuna. We offer packages for both. The theme is diversity. How many build-ers can be that flexible? We’ve got the guys, the expertise, and the heritage to pull it off.” Borges hasn’t shied away from unusual products, judging every pro-posal as a potential way to grow the company. Such was the case with Carolina Cockpit, a Pacific Northwest company that started the same year as Waterline Systems. “One of our vendors approached us

The Alerion line expanded to five models. The most recent, the 41 (12.5m), has several innovative fea-tures: a conventional transom that converts to a swim platform, sail con-trol lines concealed under the deck, and a carbon fiber mast built by Hall Spars (Bristol, Rhode Island). Developed by Mark Pearson, the True North 38 (10.4m) is now joined by the 34 and 50IPS (11.6m and 15.2m), and built by USWatercraft in Warren. They are Downeast-influenced motoryachts with retro styling: plumb bows and exaggerated tumblehome. The 34, designed by Clive Dent, displaces 12,500 lbs (5,663 kg), has deadrise of 22° amidships and 16° at the transom, and is pow-ered by a 370-hp (278-kW) Volvo diesel burning 15.3 gal (58 l) per hour at 22 knots. A total of 118 of the 38s have been built, 33 of the 33s, and 10 of the 34s. The company recently announced the twin-outboard 34MKII. As with all intelligently conceived model lines, vice-president for sales and marketing Gregg Weatherby says, “We have an owner base that wants

The Alerion Express quickly proved the viability of the gentleman’s day-sailer concept: a handsome, easily driven hullform and simple rig that one could take out for an afternoon sail with minimum hassle. Eventually, Hoyt took over product development of the line, introducing models rang-ing from 20' to 38' (6.1m to 11.6m), all built by TPI. At one point in the history of Waterline Systems, Borges formed a partnership with Mark Pearson and one of Neil Tillotson’s partners to form TPI Marine Services, in which Borges’s crew performed commission-ing, warranty, paint, and service work for TPI’s various brands, including the Alerion and the True North power-boats. For reasons not disclosed, Mark Pearson left to run Pearson Pilings, and the partnership was dissolved. “We went back to being Waterline Systems,” Borges says. “But this gave us some intimacy with the brands, and ultimately led to having a dia-logue about acquiring all the assets and keeping the tradition going and the guys in the shop busy.”

Borges hasn’t shied from diversifying his product lines; he bought the North Rip 21 (6.4m) sportfisherman and quickly tooled a larger 29' (8.8m) model.

Left—Innovative features of the Alerion 41 include a fold-down transom that converts to a swim platform, headsail furling lines led under the deck through PVC pipes, and a carbon fiber mast so stiff it doesn’t require a backstay. Right—The True North line of Downeast-styled powerboats has been expanded from the original 38 (11.6m) to now offer a 34 and a 50 (10.4m and 15.1m).

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the part is then bagged and a vac-uum pulled with the 15" (381mm) high-volume, low-suction lines. Once the bag’s integrity has been estab-lished, the 15" line is shut down, and polyester laminating resin is drawn with the 30" (762mm) vacuum line. The company is considering epoxy infusion for certain parts and products. As noted in the sidebar, most prod-ucts are cored with end-grain balsa. In way of deck hardware and other penetrations, balsa is replaced with high-density polyurethane Penske board. Despite some public skepti-cism of using wood in the hull, Bryant and Weatherby see it as a way to flip the discussion around and talk up the advantages of SCRIMP

Shop Tour Alerion’s vice-president, Scott Bryant, who started working on this site when TPI became Pearson Composites (but had left Alerion by the time this article went to press), gave me a tour of the 100,000-sq-ft (9,300m2) plant. Leaving the modest office area and entering the first building hall, he says, “We’re not a high-volume builder at this time. We want to keep our operations flexible, so we can infuse anywhere in the plant.” For the most part, hulls and decks are infused in a line of dedi-cated stalls with overhead vacuum lines. Gelcoat is sprayed onto the mold surface, followed by a layer of chopped mat, and vinylester resin;

10 years ago and said this guy had a company in Seattle,” Borges says, “and he’d gotten offered a great job after 9/11 and wanted to sell his niche busi-ness building fiberglass wheelhouses for tugboats. We bought it and now work with many of the major tug com-panies, putting out a couple dozen custom units every year. Boatbuilding skills are applicable, but yacht quality isn’t usually required. Customers don’t care too much what it looks like as long as it keeps them out of the weather. Many of the units are built to meet offshore standards; utilizing our in-house design-and-engineering staff we can build to any specs. Some of the enclosures have been major struc-tures and quite intricate.” The wheelhouses aren’t just for new builds but conversions, too. When side-tow tugs are converted to push tugs, for example, the wheel-house must be relocated higher so the pilot can see. Carolina Cockpit jobs are fabricated right alongside the yachts . Customers include Bouchard Transportation, McAllister Towing & Transportation, Foss Maritime, K-Sea Transportation, Moran Towing, Norfolk Towing, and Great Lakes Towing.

Left—Strips of veneers for Alerion and True North door frames are shaped and glued in molds. Right—Though the company can infuse just about anywhere in the plant, most hulls are infused in the stalls along the right-hand side of the main building hall.

Like other tooling, the hull mold for the Alerion 33 (10m) can be moved about the plant on a steel cradle on wheels. USWatercraft also inherited much of Pearson’s boneyard of old tooling.


CNC-cut, and then after the plug is built, an outside firm comes in and performs a 3D scan of it. Bryant says they often discover inconsistencies in the original files, which can be off ¼" (6mm) or more from the scan. The scanned file is deemed accurate enough to begin developing the interior. In the spray booth, wood parts are coated with a UV polyester sealing resin with good build, and then sanded and sprayed with Imron linear polyurethane Clear Coat in two stages. Panels are glued in a jig with WEST System epoxy.

Staff Production staff at the Warren plant now totals about 35 with another dozen in management. There’s an additional eight to 10 on the service side, with some of those at USWater-craft’s Melville facility, adjacent to the East Passage Yachting Center in Portsmouth, the same building where Everett Pearson used to build wind turbine blades. “We’re not looking at long produc-tion runs on any of these brands,” says True North’s Weatherby, “so we need people who can be cross-trained. That’s the new world. In the old days you’d ask a carpenter to do fiberglass work and he’d go, ‘Oh, no. I’m going to get itchy !’ We’ve retained

The Farr 40, a one-design class boat, has foam core throughout, as does the new True North 50. Mold and hull cradles are on wheels for easy movement around the building. Demolded hulls enter the assembly line and are finished between lines of scaffolding. The wood shop is in a different section of the building. Bulkheads and other parts are cut on a three-axis MultiCam 5000 series CNC machine that Bryant says is kept very busy. They do a fair amount of reverse engineering to create CAD files for various components, and more significantly, to ensure that their final patterns are, as Bryant says, “based on reality, not space.” Hulls are developed by third-party software and finished in Rhino. Superstructures for the plugs are

(Seemann Composites Resin Infusion Molding Process). Bryant: “Structurally, contoured balsa that is isolated in cubes is the best. From the standpoint of stiffness and thermal and acoustic insulation, you can tell the difference from foam core. It’s a great way for us to talk about infusion. Gone are the days when people remember balsa wicking water through the whole hull.” Borges elaborates: “We’re infusing J Boats, Alerions, True Norths, decks and hulls, and most small parts, such as hatches, unless class rules are against it. Some builders are just get-ting around to infusion, and we’ve been doing it since 1995. The crew prefers to do it. It’s cleaner. Like going to an office. Not dirty. Not messy. It’s a culture of SCRIMP here. Our guys infuse milk into their Cheerios!”

Left—The three-axis MultiCam 5000 series CNC machine cuts nearly all wood parts for the company. Right—An Alerion interior is mocked up in the wood shop.

The cavernous Melville facility is presently used mainly for repair jobs and storage, but bigger projects like America’s Cup and J-class yachts can fill space in a hurry.


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the best of the best, those who are willing to do whatever they have to do. Roll up their sleeves. Guys in this plant came from Everett’s mentality. We’re composites specialists with New England craftsmanship…you have such a melting pot through the years here, guys who’ve built all these models, all these brands…it’s here. There’s so much tribal knowledge.” Bryant adds: “We require different skill sets, so everyone must be able to do different jobs.” And Borges: “We can have service guys help with boat-building and vice versa.” While most of the boats USWater-craft builds are infused with balsa cores, class rules often require other materials and processes. The Farr 40, as noted earlier, is made with epoxy, vacuum-bagged with foam cores, and post-cured. It was originally built by Barry Carroll, and when Carroll Marine closed its doors in 2003, some of those employees came over to USWatercraft. Fo r s t ruc tu ra l eng inee r ing , USWatercraft looks to naval architect Thomas “T.J.” Perrotti, who for many years was chief designer for David Pedrick (see “The Pedrick Profile,” PBB No. 86) before hanging out his own shingle in Newport. He has extensive experience in the kinds of boats Borges l ikes, especia l ly 12-Meters and the la ter IACC (International America’s Cup Class) yachts. He readily provides CFD (computational fluid dynamics), FEA (finite element analysis), and VPP (velocity prediction program) studies. Currently, he’s involved with engi-neering and manufacturing all the products, including the True North 50. “We’ve made a living making bot-toms faster,” says Borges, “and T.J. brings a whole other level to it.”

Full Circle The saying “what goes around comes around” is certainly true of Barry Carroll, who Borges tapped to oversee development of the compa-ny’s latest acquisition: the C&C brand. For a more complete history of this well-known Canadian builder and design firm, see “C&C—Then, C&C—Now,” PBB No. 92, but in short, C&C Yachts was one of the world’s largest sailboat builders between 1969 and 1986, pioneering balsa-core sandwich construction for stiff, lightweight yachts that won many races, beginning

CAD files are created from drawings, and laser scan-ning of plugs adjusts for any inconsistencies in the original files.


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with the legendary Red Jacket (see “Red Jacket Revisited,” PBB No. 115). Carroll began his career working for Everett Pearson in 1973, went to work for C&C’s Middletown, Rhode Island, plant two years later, and then founded his own company, Carroll Marine, building raceboats like the Farr 40 and Mumm 36. So building the new line of C&Cs, in Pearson’s plant is a homecoming for Carroll in more ways than one. The first model is the C&C 30 One Design, designed by Mark Mills, and delivered with a carbon fiber rig, square-top mainsail, a retractable steel fin with lead bulb, and in an aggres-sive weight-saving move, Dyneema fiber lifelines. Construction is vinyl-ester and E-glass with a foam core, all infused. The second model in devel-opment is the Redline 41, taking its name from the early C&Cs designed by George Cuthbertson and George Cassian, specifically Condor, which won the 1972 Southern Ocean Racing Circuit (SORC). The boats will be sold through dealers that include RCR Yachts in Youngstown, New York, where Borges earned his first pay-check working on boats. The theme in our conversations kept repeating: to build a good prod-uct, you need good people, and to be financially successful in a fluky econ-omy, you need to be diversified. “We have a great pool of talented labor here,” Borges reiterates. “And we don’t have all our eggs in one bas-ket.” The company has the additional benefit of continuing the modern tra-dition in an industry that has helped define Rhode Island’s coastal econ-omy and communities for more than a century. “I’m inspired by the visionaries who created the many brands USWatercraft now builds,” Borges says. “We will continue the legacy of bui ld ing on th i s ha l lowed ground.”

About the Author: Dan Spurr is Professional BoatBuilder’s editor- at-large.

As of this writing, USWatercraft’s most recent acquisition is the C&C Yachts brand. The company commissioned Ireland-based yacht designer Mark Mills to create the first new C&C model, this 30' (9.1m) one-design keelboat.

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