Bruce Tait, a Founder of Breakwater Yacht Club, Steps Down From Board After 35 Years

Bruce Tait’s life has always revolved around the water.

A yacht captain before moving to Sag Harbor in the 1970s, he is the longtime owner of Tait Yachts, a brokerage and charter service. For many years, he served as chairman of the village’s Harbor Committee.

When he wasn’t juggling the demands of those two interests, he also enjoyed sailing, and in the summer of 1987, he and a handful of other sailors began organizing informal Wednesday night races. Those races, which started and ended at the harbor’s breakwater, would lead to the creation in 1988 of the Breakwater Yacht Club.

“It really started with a conversation right in the parking lot,” Tait recalled of a small group of boaters, who discussed the idea of forming a sailing club outside Tait’s office in the Malloy building at Waterfront Marina. “Breakwater started because there was no organized sailing out of Sag Harbor.”

Tait would serve as the club’s first commodore, and at the end of 2022, after 35 years of continuous service, he stepped down as a member of the club’s board of directors.

Tait gave two reasons for his decision to move on. First, his yacht business has grown, with offices in Greenport and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Second, he said it was time to pass on the duties of running the club to the younger generation.

Tait was honored for his service at a dinner at the yacht club’s headquarters on January 24.

“He, more than anyone else, was the inspiration for the club,” said former commodore Luke Babcock, who served as master of ceremonies. “The club’s first meeting was in his office.”

“Breakwater’s success over 35 years of teaching people how to sail and getting kids on the water is the work of many people over that time,” said the current commodore, Bud Rogers. “But Bruce stands out.”

Tait, he said, was the driving force behind the club’s sponsorship of the Sag Harbor Cup/Race Against Drug Abuse, and other endeavors. “Even if he wasn’t the commodore, he was very much tuned in to the mission of the club,” Rogers said. “He was enormously valuable.”

This week, Tait said the club was formally chartered initially so it could sponsor the Race Against Drug Abuse, which initially benefited an upisland charity. Later, the club made local donations, including to Pierson High School, before settling on its own answer to keeping kids off drugs: a youth sailing program.

The club offered scholarships and reached out to local school districts. “We put the word out, and pretty much every kid who wants to has taken the junior sailing program,” he said.

Tait said the club was also blessed with good luck over the years. Early on, the Sag Harbor Yacht Yard gave it space to store and launch its boats. Later, the Mobil Oil Company deeded a piece of waterfront property to the village. A small portion of that property, right on the water, was the only portion that was not contaminated and the only piece that could be built on. The club and the village signed a lease, and a clubhouse was completed in 2003. Financing was obtained through the Bridgehampton National Bank through a program requiring banks to reinvest in their communities.

For years, club members have taken pains to say that Breakwater is a yacht club in name only, open to all, with modest membership fees and affordable programs. In fact, the sign on its clubhouse now reads Breakwater Sailing Center, a nod to its role in the community.