Eight Bells: Scott Graham

Scott Graham

Scott Graham, age 69 years of Muskegon (MI), passed away peacefully from bone marrow cancer on Tuesday evening, August 16, 2016 at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital in Grand Rapids, MI. He was born Lawrence Scott Graham on March 14, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois, Scott was a US Air Force Veteran of the Vietnam Era, and he currently owned & operated Seaworthy Company.

Previously, he had partnered with Eric Schlagater to form the Chicago-based G&S, where their boat designs soon dominated Great Lakes, national and international racing. ‘Chocolate Chips’, a ¾ ton design they did in 1977, got them their first headlines when it won the 1978 ¾ Ton North Americans in San Diego and placed 3rd in the Worlds held in Vancouver, BC. After Chips’ success they enjoyed a steady flow of work, which included the fractionally rigged half-tonner ‘Warrior’ that won both Mac races overall in 1979 and a similar designed boat named ‘Ciao’ that won the Chicago ¾ Ton NA’s in the early eighties.

But it was their thirty-foot design for Fred Horwitz of Milwaukee that provided G&S with broad market exposure. Named ‘Pinocchio’, she won her class in the 1981 MORC Internationals, which got the attention of S2 Yachts of Holland, MI. The boat builder was looking to make an upgrade to their line of family cruisers, and commissioned G&S to design the S2 7.9m. It was a trailerable, daggerboard MORC design about 26’ long which went on to win the MORC Internationals in 1983 and 1984. The class still has active one-design fleets around the country and continues to place well in various events.

The G&S team penned several more models for S2, which over the next few years built several hundred of their designs. When S2 Yachts got out of the sailboat business in the late eighties, G&S stayed busy with IOR and MORC design work, and were also part of the design team for Chicago YC’s America’s Cup challenge, ‘Heart of America’. But when IOR and MORC began to fade, Scott left the firm in 1989 to take a position at US Sailing (then USYRU) as an offshore technical director.

On April 12, 1980 he married Monica Terrien and she survives him along with one sister, Susan (Dennis) Grosse in Austin, Texas and their children: Jorie (Roy) Shalem, Michael (Susan) Grosse; brothers-in-law & sisters-in-law: Gregory (Barb) Terrien, Stephen (Shirley) Terrien, Martin (Cyndi) Terrien, Demetrhea (Betsy York) Terrien, Patricia (Lester) Mackey, Andrew (Barbara) Terrien, Cecilia (John) Draminski; and many nieces & nephews.

Scott was preceded in death by his parents; by his sister, Barbara Graham; and by his father-in-law & mother-in-law, Clayton & Muriel (Theisen) Terrien. According to Scott’s wishes, there will be no visitation or service. You can sign the online guest book at www.kroeze-wolffis.com.