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- Sailboat Guide
Carl Alberg
From BlueWaterBoats.org :
Carl Alberg (1900 – 31 August 1986) was a Swedish born yacht designer best known for his influence in early fiberglass boats.
His formal training came from two years of sailboat design courses at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. In 1925 he moved to Lynn, Massachusetts in the United States where he began working as a rigger then later as a spar maker. It was there that he met John Alden who hired him as a designer.
“I enjoyed working with Alden very much. He was a wonderful guy, pleasant, calm, never getting excited, and I learned quite a bit from working with him. His designs were conservative. He concentrated on seaworthiness, comfort and boats that would sail on their bottoms, and that’s pretty much what I’ve tried to do with my boats.” – Carl Alberg
During World War Two, his tenure at Alden was interrupted to work for the Navy at the Charleston Naval Shipyard. Upon his return, he designed the U.S. One-Design and by 1946, he left Alden to start his own design firm.
His fame as a designer however can be attributed to his work with two Pearson cousins, Clint and Everett. Alberg asked about building one of his designs in fiberglass, which resulted in the 28 foot Pearson Triton 28 and the birth of Pearson Yachts. Alberg went on to design many models for the Pearson cousins, including the Bristol 28 which was the first model for Bristol Yachts (also started by the Pearson duo).
Perhaps his most famous design, and also one of his earliest, is the Alberg 30 which was built by Whitby Boatworks in Canada as a one design club racer. This boat went on to make a record breaking production run of over 750 boats spanning 22 years and is now known as a popular bluewater capable cruiser.
Alberg also had a fruitful partnership was with Cape Dory Yachts who produced 10 different models of his design.
Carl Alberg’s plans are now owned by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA USA.
Links & References
» Carl Alberg biography at Alberg30.org » Carl Alberg’s Wikipedia entry » Carl Alberg – His wholesome designs sailed us into the age of fiberglass by Brian Hill, Sailing : The beauty of sail (magazine), Feb 1984.
56 Sailboats designed by Carl Alberg
South Coast 22
Typhoon 18 (Weekender)
Pearson Ensign
Sea Sprite 23 (Daysailor)
Bristol 19 (Sailstar Corinthian 19)
Pearson Ariel 26
Cape Dory 28
Cape Dory 30C
Pearson Electra
Pearson Commander 26
South Coast 21
Cape Dory 27
South Coast 23
Cape Dory 25D
Cape Dory 22
Cape Dory 36
Cape dory 36 kth, aeromarine triton.
Typhoon 18 (Daysailer)
Cape Dory 33
Cape Dory 31
Cape Dory 26
JouËT Triton
Cape Dory Typhoon SR
Coastwise Cruiser (#675)
US One-Design
Cape Dory 330
Malabar JR. (1939)
Hinckley 21
Cape Dory 40
Odyssey 30 (alberg).
Cape Dory 32
Cape Dory 45
Cape Dory 30K
Sea Sprite 23 (Weekender)
Robinhood 36
Robinhood 40
Corinthian 19 (Alberg)
Kittiwake 23
Northbridge eclipse (southcoast), north american 22, triton (pearson) yawl.
Pearson Triton
Pearson hawk 16.
Typhoon 18 (Naugus)
Eclipse 6.7 (southcoast).
Bristol 27 (Weekender)
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- Sailboat Reviews
Carl Alberg’s Timeless Designs
Wed tucked into Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera, when the pretty green sloop sailed through the narrow slot into the basin. A ballsy kid, he didnt even furl the jib.
I can’t recall his name. He was in his 20s-handy with tools and a brush. The boats coamings gleamed with nine layers of varnish. The boat, I remember well. It was the first time I got a really close look at an Alberg 30. She was, in many ways, the sort of sailboat an elementary school artist might render, if you asked him to draw a sailboat. Deceptively simple. Elegant and well-balanced.
I got the feeling that the designer, the late Carl Alberg, approached this boat the same way the child with a box of crayons would-not too concerned with what was going on inside-how many bunks, how big the galley was, or the amount of storage space. (The kid in the Alberg 30 found more than enough room for his worldly possessions.)
Born in 1900 in Sweden, Alberg grew up in the shadow of the shipyard cranes of Goteburg, Sweden. His first and foremost concern, like that of most Scandinavian designers, was seaworthiness. (The North Sea winters can have that effect.)
While Alberg was surely influenced by the ratings rules of his era, which encouraged yawls and long overhangs, he held a deep conviction that the heavily ballasted, narrow hull offer seakeeping advantages that wider hulls lack. Even Albergs later yachts built for Cape Dory, designed in the 1970s when beam-to-length ratios were still fairly modest, demonstrated an aversion to girth at the waterline.
In his exceptional book on the history of fiberglass boat building, Heart of Glass, former PS Editor Dan Spurr describes Cape Dorys Andrew Vavolitis trying to squeeze more beam out of Alberg to meet the market demands for floating condos. He might give me an inch or two, but that was it, said Vavolotis. After that, Carl would say, If you want more beam, go find another designer. I don’t think thats right.
To loudly proclaim that a wider beam is superior for its initial stability is to simplify yacht design. As any keelboat racer will tell you, a wide flotation plane can backfire when wave and wind conspire to force a capsize. And such statements say nothing about the effect of a wider beam on the way a boat handles.
In our February 2009 issue, we took a hard look at the effect of the modern hull-design trends and helm balance. The article focuses on wide-bodied, fin keel designs and their tendency to round up (even self-tack!) in a gust. While the long-keel Alberg 35 profiled in this issue has its own performance quirks, a tendency to self-tack is not one that its owners have to worry about.
The bottom line in any yacht design is a good sense of proportion. Alberg clearly had a keen eye for this, and the fact that his boats still draw sighs 50 years after their debut shows that his aesthetic sense has endured.
A few days later, the kid steered the green sloop out of Hatchett Bay the way hed come in. Headed south, hed said before leaving. I watched him go with envy. The boat cost him all of $10,000. A hell of deal. I imagine hes still got it today. The kid struck me as the intelligent sort.
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Well, you sure convinced me!
CD yachts were surprisingly fast and comfortable. I owned three: a Typhoon, which I bought off the factory floor (being offered at massive discount because of minor gelcoat imperfections) in the 70s, followed by a 25 (not an Alberg, but still a great sailor and easy-to-handle), and a 27, which I lived aboard and cruised year-round for 4+ years.
I singlehanded most of the time, and they are quite easy to handle under sail. Plus, and a major plus for me, the boats I owned handled well under mainsail alone. I consider this of vital importance, in particular for the single-hander. I do not want to be fooling with a working jib going into an anchorage or mooring field under sail (I anchored under sail 99% of the time).
Never added furling gear and kept them drop-dead simple above and below deck. I was the only liveaboard in the marina who get get underway in twenty minutes or less. Others were either too big or too complex or had too much junk aboard. I like to keep it simple, ashore or afloat.
If you are in the market for a used CD, make sure to inspect the balsa cored decks and backing plates (CD used common steel here) on the chainplates, for issues. Overall, excellent boats and great coastal cruisers.
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