Ericson 35-3 Tooling

[Loren Beach]

I was looking for something else on the USCG site, and happened to find a reference to this company. I recall that quite a few years ago the tooling for the E-35 was purchased by a company in Nevada, but have never heard anything further.
The company appears to still exist.

http://www.uscgboating.org/recalls/mic_detail.aspx?id=LXL

Here's the page, with their info.

Anyone know anything about this company?

Loren

 

[Lucky Dog]

E 35-III Tooling in NV?

Sean I found this. Looks like a scrape yard. Notice the NW corner.

 

[exoduse35]

It looks more like there are several molde from boats of yesterday. it seeems that they have aranged matching deck snd hull molds along side each other and there ia buildings where one or two could be built at a time. It may be worth an enquire as to what they have and are capable of doing for owners of the boats that once were born in those molds. Edd

 

[Prairie Schooner]

Stumbled across this post, and out of curiosity did some snooping. The molds are still there, at least according to Apple maps of March 2025. It sure looks like they could be for an E35.





The closest I could get with Google Maps. By my reckoning they'd be in the far background of this yard.


If anyone happens to be by there, it would be really cool to get some photos of the molds. There's probably an interesting story to how they got there.

It's a marvel to me that the technology exists to get this close, virtually. Curiously, Apple aerial views were more crisp than Google.

Over a cup of coffee on a slow Saturday morning,
Jeff

 

[Drewm3i]

So, who's buying the molds back and starting Ericson Yachts 2.0?

 

[Loren Beach]

So, who's buying the molds back and starting Ericson Yachts 2.0?

My friends in the industry have always told me that once a mold is parked outside in the weather -- suffering from UV, heat, cold, rain, etc, the all important shiny surface deteriorates and the whole part starts to warp. Basically you can't count on easily resurrecting them for further production. Worse, before you can put any of these boats back in production you need the large precision stack of patterns for all the wood interior parts. Do-able, but not usually economically viable.
Also, marketing has convinced potential buyers that a different "look" is essential for a boat now. While style has zip to do with whether the new 'look' will perform better overall, it has everything to do with attracting new sailors and their obtaining financing.
Depressing as it kinda is to me, modern sailors routinely start with 200K boats and often lack the knowledge base of sailing that years of dinghy racing and small keelboat sailing provided to all the earlier generations.
And, so, the World Turns!

 

[Prairie Schooner]

So, who's buying the molds back and starting Ericson Yachts 2.0?

Sure, I'll go halfsies with you!

 

[bgary]

My friends in the industry have always told me that once a mold is parked outside in the weather -- suffering from UV, heat, cold, rain, etc, the all important shiny surface deteriorates and the whole part starts to warp. Basically you can't count on easily resurrecting them for further production.

Very true. I have a friend whose father (long story short) ended up with the tooling for the Express-34 and Express-37 as part of a settlement when the builder went under. It was the late 80s, those were hot boats and he thought he was sitting on a gold mine, in no hurry to sell because he was so sure there would be a line of prospective buyers beating a path to his door and bidding.

Flash to 35+ years later they're still sitting in dad's yard, somewhere up in Scotts Valley, IIRC. They might qualify as interesting yard art, but there's no way they could still be used to produce boats - I doubt they could even be used to build a sacrificial plug to make new tooling - which is a shame, because more Express-37s (and 35-3s) would make the world a happier place

B

 

[Loren Beach]

because more Express-37s (and 35-3s) would make the world a happier place

Oh Yeah!
Sometimes I still experience a bit of faint lust for finding one of the (rumor has it) 12 Express 37's with the optional "cruising" interior option package. What I do not know is whether they have 6'2" headroom like our Olson.
Lack of headroom was what stopped us from considering, back in our shopping days, seriously an Olson 40. A visit aboard one revealed that problem.

 

[Prairie Schooner]

This is turning into a bit of an obsession, so I should just walk away from the computer. But, before I do that:



I know a fair number of people in the boat building business and have no illusions that resurrecting an old mold or design would be easy. Or a sound financial decision. But I am fascinated by these molds nonetheless. I would love to see them to learn more about how our boat was built. The white stripe in the top view hints at how the waterline and boot stripe would have been transferred to the new hull. I assume the transom was left open and applied as a separate piece. But maybe not. And other unformed questions.

Mound House, NV is just a few miles northeast of Carson City, and only a few miles further from Lake Tahoe. It's only about four and a half hours from my son in Alameda, CA. So maybe it's not as odd to find these molds in the high desert as I first thought. Somebody's dream . . .