The sailing world lost one of its most popular and visionary members on March 31, 2025 when Garry Hoyt passed away at the age of 93 in his home in Newport, Rhode Island.
Hoyt, who had been an advertising executive for most of his professional career and was based in Puerto Rico for 25 years, was at heart a sailor. He was an accomplished racer who represented Puerto Rico in three Olympic games: Mexico in 1968, Canada in 1972 and Mexico in 1976.
He loved sailing dinghies and small boats, so it is no surprise that Hoyt won the first Sunfish World Championship that was held in St. Thomas, USVI in 1970. His list of trophies was long, including wining the overall trophy at the 2006 Opera Cup in Nantucket in which he sailed an Alerion 26, the smallest boat in the fleet.
After retiring from Young and Rubicon in 1980, he moved to Newport and founded Freedom Yachts. Always a visionary and an imaginative designer, Hoyt developed unstayed, wishbone rigs for his first Freedom 40 that made sailing as simple and easy as possible. The company was successful and earned him a wide following and many awards. Sail Magazine awarded him their annual Innovation Award in 1999 and their Industry Leadership Award in 2002.
After selling Freedom Yacht, Hoyt joined forces with designer Carl Schumacker to launch the Alerion line of classic-looking sloops with fast, racing style hulls. These beautiful boats not only are wonderful daysailers and weekenders, they are also race winners, as Hoyt proved by winning the Opera Cup.
Hoyt’s contributions to the sailing industry were many. To help make sailing easier, he developed the Hoyt Jib Boom that made headsails self-tacking. Island Packet and many other builders soon adopted the booms as standard equipment.
He also was one of the founders of Sail America, the sailing industry’s trade association. In doing so, Hoyt gave the industry its own identity and an organizational structure to help grow the sport of sailing and the industry.
Hoyt was a member of the New York Yacht Club, Ida Lewis Yacht Club, The Nantucket Yacht Club, the Storm Trysail Club and the Navy War College Foundation. In 2022, he was inducted into the Sailing Hall of Fame, which he also had a hand in founding.
I am lucky enough to have known Garry for 45 years and to have sailed with him any times. His passing leaves a hole in the sailing world that will never be filled.
