Our founder, Tyler Drown, has had a lifelong passion for the sea and being on the water sparked by visiting family and vacationing on the craggy coast of Northern New England and boating with friends and family on the lakes of the Poconos and New Jersey. When he was 17 he channeled that passion and his love for projects and tinkering into building his first boat, the Stephenson Project’s Weekender, a gaff-rigged trailerable pocket-yacht inspired by the design of the Friendship Sloop. He built two skiffs while trying out different construction methods soon thereafter. Captain Drown is a graduate of Drexel University with a degree in International Business and Entrepreneurship and minor in World History and Politics and competed as an intercollegiate sailor and served as Vice President, Regatta Chair, and Alumni Relations Manager of the Drexel Sailing Team.

After working abroad he came to New York City where he quickly found his way onto sailboats crewing on races and regattas in Long Island Sound and New York Harbor. At the beginning of 2020 Tyler Drown was the Port Captain of the Nantucket Lightship WLV-612 that had been converted into a 6,000 square foot private yacht that was docked in Boston Harbor. He took classes at New England Maritime Academy and got his license. Later that year in June 2020 he started a workshop at Marina59 in the Rockaways and began restoring and repairing classic sailboats and more.