By Melanie Winters

"It was nice for him," says his son, Mark.

Father and son have teamed up to buy back the name so they can relaunch Pearson Yachts with a new boat - a powerboat designed to serve the "SUV" lifestyle of today's consumer.

The new company is a division ofTPI Composites, a manufacturer of advanced composites products for the marine, industrial, transportation and recreation industries. TPI has built more than 15,()()() boats under a number of brand names over the years. It currently builds J/Boats for thejohnstone family of Newport, R.I., as well as a limited number of its own Alerion-Express sailboats at a 250,000-square-foot plant in Warren, R.I.

The Pearson Yachts name dates to 1957 when Everett Pearson, often credited with starting the fiberglass production boat industry, founded the company with his cousin Clinton Pearson. They started first with powerboats, then sailboats, then a mix of both. The two sold the business to Grumman Allied Industries in 1961 and eventually went their separate ways.

The media-shy Everett Pearson, now semi-retired at 67, joined forces with multimillionaire Neil Tillotson to form Tillotson-Pearson Inc. in 1968. In 1993, Tillotson sold out to John Walton, a son ofWal-Mart founder Sam Walton, and the company became TPI Inc. Everett Pearson has teamed up with his son, Mark, to relaunch the Pear-son Yachts name.

Meanwhile, Pearson Yachts filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991, a victim of the industry recession and 10 percent luxury tax. The molds and assets changed hands several times over the years and eventually wound up in the hands of Cal-Pearson Corp., a company formed in 1996 by, among others, Pearson Yachts co-founder Clinton Pearson.

No interest in the molds

About two years ago TPI decided to buy back the Pearson Yachts name so it could again have its own line of boats, saysjono Billings, TPI sales manager.

Although TPI does own the line of Alerion-Express sailboats, Mark Pearson says the company only builds 10 or 15 a year.

"We're looking for the Pearson line to become a lot bigger than Alerion," he says, citing a production goal of 50 to 100 per year.

The 38-year-old Mark Pearson says the purchase involved the name only, not the molds. He says those designs are old and there isn't much of a market for them. The Pearsons preferred instead to start from scratch and design an entirely new line of boats.

The True North

The first boat to be introduced under the Pearson Yachts name is the True North 38, inspired by the no-nonsense utility of New England lobster boats. Billings says they chose to develop the powerboat line to offer a greater product mix and match the needs of the marketplace.

"More builders are getting into powerboat building than sailboat building, and the consumer is getting more into powerboating either as a second boat or as a change to sailing," he says. "It's a different yachting world today."

"This boat represents a lot of new thinking in how people use their boats," says Pearson. "Our experience told us that there was a need for making boats more user-friendly, less complex and requiring less maintenance."

It was Billings who suggested modeling the new boat after New England lobster boats, with a few alterations like a reverse transom and a plume bow.

"The lobster boat is pleasing to the eye," he says. "We wanted a boat that would do a lot of cool stuff, look good and wasn't a piece of furniture."

The idea, which he presented during a brainstorming session a year ago, was to come up with the SUV version of a powerboat. It should have room to store all of the toys today's active family wants to take along. This includes kayaks and mountain bikes as well as fishing gear and an inflatable dinghy. The overall design had to be simple but attractive. Utility was an important consideration, as was a reasonable price compared to other boats of this size.

"We've seen the prices of new boats climb steadily over the past few years to a point that doesn't make a lot of sense to most people," Pearson says. "So we went back to the drawing board and started this project with the objective of creating a boat that was simply more fun and less work."

"It's been an evolution of redrawing, rethinking and constantly going back to the original mission statement," Billings says.

"We felt we had some very good ideas, but we wanted the feedback of our target audience to confirm them." - Mark Pearson

In the 'tweak mode'

As of mid-January Pearson Yachts had completed the hull design and was in "tweak mode" with the finishing touches on the overhang and the pilot board. The company expects the first boats to be launched sometime in August.

The result of all that tweaking and refining is a pilothouse that features a helm station, galley and dinette. A large cockpit has room to store a 10-foot inflatable with motor, easily launched through wide, double-transom doors. The house top can stow two or three kayaks.Two adults are accommodated in the forward stateroom and an optional loft can sleep two children.

As for performance. Billings says the plumb bow and reverse transom add to Jono Billings, sales manager for TPI Composites, stands at the helm of the full-size mock-up of Pearson Yachts' new True North 38. the boat's waterline, giving it an especially smooth ride in choppy head seas. The flat chines aft and deep forefoot predict a dry, stable ride in all sea directions. It also has a bow thruster for easy maneuvering.

The True North 38 takes advantage of TPI's advanced composite technology, as its hull will be built using the patented SCRIMP (Seemann Composites Resin Infusion Molding Process) technology. Stronger and lighter than conventionally built fiberglass boats, the True North 38 is designed to achieve its 25-plus knots of speed with moderate power, which the company says makes it quieter and more fuel-efficient than other boats of comparable size.

Focus groups

As the boat's design began to take shape the Pearsons commissioned Sass Communications in Annapolis, Md., to conduct a series of focus groups with boaters of varying degrees of experience.

"We felt we had some very good ideas, but we wanted the feedback of our target audience to confirm them," Pearson says. "The exercise was very enlightening, as we learned firsthand what was important to today's buyer."

Above all, he says, people want a boat that delivers more of the simple pleasures of boating without the expense and maintenance of highly complex systems and overly luxurious amenities. He says the message was loud and clear: "We want to spend our time having fun on our boat, not working on it or working extra hours to pay for it."

This feedback confirmed that Pearson Yachts was on the right track with its new design.

"From the get-go they were totally in agreement with our concept," Billings says.

He says the average boater has not changed much over the years in terms of demographics, but lifestyles are dramatically different.

"There's a lot more focus on the environment, on nature - not just sitting at the dock," he says.

He says boaters today are going farther afield and they want to do more with their limited leisure time. They also want to bring the family closer together.

"Families are split up with all of their activities and they want to bring their activities together," he says. "People want to include their significant others more than before."

Three-level approach

There are still those people who want more than just a basic, 12-volt boat, however. Some boaters still want air-conditioning, a bigger engine and fancier trim. So instead of building one boat at a time with multiple options, Pearson Yachts came up with three levels of the same boat.

"To keep the boat cost effective we need to keep our workers building the same boat every time," says Billings.

The Sport, with a base price of $240,000, is for those who want the most boat for the money and appreciate the beauty of simplicity. The $290,000 Explorer model includes a number of features to make long-range cruising more comfortable. The more luxurious Heritage, priced at $325,000, features a more complete electronics package, a wood-trim interior, generator and air-conditioning.

In addition to manufacturing efficiencies, Pearson Yachts also keeps its prices down by selling directly to the consumer through its Portsmouth, R.I., sales office.

Besides, says Billings, "No one knows this boat better than us."

He says everyone at Pearson Yachts is a salesperson, from the production workers to the office staff, "and wicked good at it."

"I don't feel there is anyone in the country who can sell this boat as effectively as we can," he says.

They start by bringing each customer into the factory to show them their production methods and then give them a test run at the company's water facility.

This personalized attention won't end with the final sale. Pearson Yachts will then send out a representative to teach customers all about their new boat, until the owner feels comfortable enough to take sole possession.

Also, the boatbuilder is setting up special relationships with 18 select boatyards around the country that involve offering package deals for each Pearson Yacht that gets delivered and serviced there. The company has the boatyard send its employees to the Rhode Island plant for specialized training on each model.

"The two most important relationships a boat owner has is with the builder and the boatyard," says Billings, who spent 25 years in the boatyard industry before joining TPI five years ago. "I know all of the good boatyards personally," he says.

"We want to keep the owner in our family, and to keep the owner in our family we need to have a service yard they can count on," he says. "When the customer uses one of our service yards we can guarantee how much it will cost. We can predict every year what it's going to cost to own and maintain the boat."

The Pearsons also plan to offer each customer an intensive, weeklong boat handling training program that includes more advanced, hands-on lessons on things like fog navigation, adverse conditions, docking and safety issues. This training initially will be offered at TPI's waterfront facility in Melville, R.I., then expanded to other parts of the country.

Another training course - on simple docking, safety and other basics - will be offered to the nonboating spouse only. This allows them to gain more confidence on a boat without the pressure of their more experienced partners looking over their shoulders.

"This is a way to get them instantly caught up with how their boat works," Billings says of the training programs.

Once the first boats roll off the assembly line and into the buyers' hands, Pearson Yachts plans to offer True North 38 Cruises. Billings says some boaters feel uncomfortable cruising in unfamiliar owaters and instead leave the boat at a dock or travel only a limited distance. The Pearson cruises will involve taking half a dozen boats on a run, say from Rhode Island to Maine, and anchoring in a quiet spot for a few days.

"This is not a typical rendezvous," Billings emphasizes. "This is more of a cruise where we might spend a day mountain hiking, hiking, bird watching or holding a sailing regatta with dinghies. It's more of an exploration."

He says the cruises will serve to show boaters there is a plethora of things they can do on the boat and after they anchor, allowing them to stay together while they enjoy all those activities that previously split them apart.

Of course, "This is all selfishly motivated," Billings admits."In the end what we want is the customer to stay with us."

"Reprinted with permission from Soundings Publications, LLC"