Wooden Boat AtlasDesigners, builders & classes · v3.0

Atlas / Designers

1949 or 1951 – 2002 · Alameda, California

Carl Schumacher

Yacht designer — Alameda, California

An Estuary designer who rejected the pinched-stern IOR aesthetic in favour of light, easily driven, pleasant boats — the Express 27 and the Alerion Express among them — and raced his own designs to prove the point.

Career
Cal Poly; Jensen Marine; joined Gary Mull's office in 1973; independent from 1977
Output
Roughly 57 to 60 designs and close to 600 boats in a 25-year independent career
Bay presence
The Express 27 remains one of the Bay's strongest one-design fleets
  • 1979Summertime Dream — Quarter Ton national champion; launched his solo career
  • Express 27 / 34 / 37 — performance cruiser-racers
  • Alerion Express 28 — about 200 built; his most commercially successful design
  • 1999Synergy 1000 — Sailing World Sportboat of the Year
Sourcing notes & unresolved questions
  • Birth year conflicts: Latitude 38 and the National Sailing Hall of Fame give 13 June 1949; Sailing World's obituary headline gives 1951.

Wooden Boat Atlas v3.0 · built 30 July 2026 · a project of the Golden Gate Wooden Boat Foundation · licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · open data · corrections