The First Owner

Blair Brown certainly had a history prior to 1964, but let's just start here.  He was attending Harvard Graduate School of Design and was friends with a fellow student, Lionel Spiro.  Lionel graduated a year ahead of Blair, but both experienced difficulties in finding the kind of materials needed to do their architectural projects.  Thus was born Charrette, a company specializing in all things for design, architecture, interior, graphic, etc.

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Starting in Cambridge, the two decided to take on NYC.  And that they did in 1970, exceptionally well.  Headquarters were established in Woburn, MA in 1977 along with a 200K sq ft warehouse.  According to an article that all I could dig up was the title and lead, Charette had become an $89 million business by 1997.  Investment firm Berkshire Partners, in a management buyout, purchased the company for an undisclosed amount.

 

Somewhere in there, Blair was already sailing.  Brad, in his research, learned that Blair's first sailboat was a C&C 40 named GREYHOUND.  Then, in 1984 Blair partnered with Bache Renshaw and commissioned a 40' IOR design by Brendan Dobroth, named DRUMBEAT.  This was when PUG came into being.  Blair commissioned Hunt to design a 30' powerboat to serve as a tender to the racing program.

In 1991 Blair again partnered with Bache to build a Taylor 42 at Concordia, also named 
DRUMBEAT.  This was also the time when Blair repowered PUG with larger engines.

 

In 1998, Blair went out on his own and built the Taylor 45 SFORZANDO at Goetz.  We learned in a few articles that an acquaintance of ours through the Sandys Boat Club in Bermuda, Peter Bromby, an Olympic Star sailor, was often crew (tactician) with Blair.  In fact, that is him in the light blue shirt in the aft of the third picture above.

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Blair's last boat was a Kerr 55 that he also named SFORZANDO.  Blair passed on January 2, 2016.  He was incredibly accomplished and thankfully, very clearly, loved yachting.

 

We will add more about Blair and his racing days.  We have reached out to Peter, and Blair's longtime boat caretaker, Jack Foley.