Garry Hoyt's quest for making sailing simpler has never wavered.
Hoyt has a 37 year record of introducing sailing innovations, and he has no intention of stopping. Garry received SAIL
Magazine's Industry Award for Leadership in 2001. The award was presented by Charles Mason, SAIL's Executive
Editor, who said, "Driven by his enthusiasm for sailing and his insatiable desire to make sailing simpler, Garry has
created numerous innovative sailing products that all of us can enjoy."
In an earlier career, Hoyt was a high
ranking executive with Young & Rubicam, a major advertising firm. His skill and experience in the field of marketing
and copy writing have all contributed to succes in designing new ideas for sailing and is what put Freedom Yachts and Alerion
Express on the map.
In 1976 he founded Freedom Yachts with
the Freedom 40, a Cat Ketch that successfully demonstrated the validity of free standing spars for large ocean going yachts.
A number of other Free Standing Spar yachts followed, including the F-21, F-25, F-29, F-32, F-33 and F-44. Both the
F-32 and F-44 were winners of the Bermuda One-Two Regatta.
As an author, Hoyt has written many articles for the
major sailing magazines--along with 2 books, "Go For The Gold" and "Ready About." As an interesting
sidelight, Hoyt's title use of the phrase "Go For The Gold" in 1971 was the first published use of that now
popular phrase in the context of a quest for the Olympic Gold Medal.
After
selling Freedom Yachts in 1985, Hoyt collaborated with Harken to produce the "Waterbug" and the "Mallard,"
two small, sea going, pedal powered boats. One of these boats-the "Mallard" was pedaled-single handed-across
the English Channel and back-in the same day!
In 1994 Garry
and Donna began their involvement with Alerion Express, at the invitation of Everett Pearson-then President of TPI.
From very modest sales, the AE 28 was steadily built to its present stature of over 400 sold. Hoyt was instrumental
in refining this Carl Schumacher design, adding a bulb keel, the Hoyt Jib Boom, the "S" Drive engine and significantly
simplifying the single handed ease. By his committed, personal salesmanship, Garry in effect created the whole new category
of "elegant day sailers," which has now attracted 8 other brands. In 2005 Hoyt again showed the way forward
by introducing the Alerion Express 38, featuring a carbon rig with no backstay, which enabled a more efficient, fully roached
mainsail. Hoyt was a member of the design team that produced the new AE 33, which employs the above refinements, all
of which have been validated by race course results.
Hoyt
is the holder of 10 Patents, proving his commitment to innovation. Prominent among these was Single Line Reefing-invented
by Hoyt in 1983 and now widely used as the simplest and safest system. The Hoyt Gun Mount brought new ease and efficiency
to the spinnaker. Perhaps the most successful invention of them all is the Hoyt Jib Boom, now in use on over 2000 boats.
This idea was also successfully employed for mainsails on the Escape line of roto-molded dinghies designed by Hoyt and is
currently utilized on several other small boat designs.
Introduced
here is the new patented Hoyt Offset Rig, which promises to improve the speed, ease and safety of virtually
any sailboat.
Patents:
HJB-Hoyt Jib Boom
HOR-Hoyt Offset Rig
HSB-Hoyt Spinnaker Boom
HGM-Hoyt Gun Mount
SLR-Single Line Reefing