Sloat Fassett Hodgson, 94, died in his West Falmouth home just before sunrise on Thursday, Oct. 13. He was aware and at peace, in the company of his daughter, Michele, his son, Tom, and his stepson, David Horton.

Born in Atlanta, Ga., on May 17, 1911, he was the fourth of seven children of Dr. Frederick Grady Hodgson and Margaret (Fassett) Hodgson. He attended primary school in Atlanta and was a member of the Class of 1933 at the Westminster School. He went on to Princeton University and then to Rollins College.

In 1947 Sloat married Nancy Curtis Weadock, with whom he had two children, Thomas Sloat Hodgson of West Tisbury and Michele Weadock Hodgson, now of Durham, N.C. Divorced from Nancy in 1954, he married Ariel Camp Horton in 1960, and welcomed her sons, David and Tory, into the family. Ariel died on July 13, 2003.

In his early adult years he worked on a chicken farm in Maine and on diesel engines at the White Motor Company; he also taught shop at the Hamilton School in New York city and at the Out of Door School in Sarasota, Fla. He was a carpenter on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. He worked at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for many years, where he calibrated bathythermographs and other instruments.

In the early fifties he helped in the building of the Twitchell House in Chilmark. Also on the crew for that job were George Cook and Craig Kingsbury. Sloat was fond of telling the "Mud Turtle" story, which to his delight was eventually written down and preserved in Kristy Kingsbury Henshaw's book, Craig Kingsbury Talkin'.

During World War II he served in the Civil Air Patrol as a mechanic at their Falmouth base, and eventually held the rank of sergeant. He served Falmouth as a town meeting member, and was proud to be a citizen of that town.

In 1917 his maternal grandparents, Jacob Sloat and Jennie (Crocker) Fassett, purchased land on the north shore of West Falmouth harbor, across from Chapoquoit Island. There they built a grand summer home, called Greycourt, which for many years was filled with the activity of a large and extended family. It was in this family setting that Sloat spent his boyhood summers from the age of six. Here began his lifelong love affair with sailing. For many years the family owned a 40-foot, Starling Burgess-designed, keel-centerboard yawl, the Marjelia, built in 1928. Early in World War II Greycourt was carefully dismantled, and its parts and pieces recycled. A colony of family cottages remained.

Sloat's passion for boats never left him; his preference was for small craft in West Falmouth harbor and Buzzards Bay, which he knew intimately, in every weather, every wind and every tide. In later life, one of his local claims to fame was as founding member, chief scribe and leading light of the well-known Hog Island Racers. For more than 30 years, readers of the Falmouth Enterprise were entertained and informed by his reports of the Hog Island Races. His writing far transcended the simple reporting of facts, and allowed his erudition and literary ability to shine. Many of his devoted readers were not water people, but knew they were reading an able writer who loved his subject.

From the early days of the race, Sloat referred to himself as the Launch Boy. He faithfully reported each race, writing less about winners than about the details that comprised the reality of the event. He described mishaps, foibles, interactions between the beetlecats, their surroundings, their skippers and crews, and spectators. To him, even those on shore who cheered at the finish line were Hog Islanders.

"My philosophy has not changed," he once said. "Everybody has to have a good time. I've resisted all pressure to do anything differently. And I can be hardheaded when I want to." In 1999, Sloat published The Hog Island Racers: Chronicles of the Launch Boy, a compilation of 30 years of Enterprise columns about the Hog Islanders. In 2002 the Hog Island Trophy was returned to Sloat when he retired as Launch Boy and scribe.

Sloat Hodgson was a man of many facets. He had a deep relationship with the physical world, and encyclopedic knowledge. He was well-read and could remember, sometimes to the page, most of what passed before his eyes. He loved good writing, from Chaucer to Kipling to Pogo. He could read aloud beautifully, be it Faulkner, Dostoyevsky or Hoban's Captain Najork books. His dry wit and sense of humor were wonderful. In a moment, he could create and recite a limerick on any subject. Born in an age of letter writing, his correspondence was extensive. An esthete, he knew and valued the well-thought, the well-designed and the well-crafted. His extraordinary memory made him the source for answers to historical questions. He loved music, especially Dixieland Jazz, which he knew in great detail. For a number of years he played trombone in a brass choir with a group of friends.

He was a careful and able man with his hands. He was a shop teacher, boatbuilder, rigger, machinist, instrument calibrator, mechanic, caretaker, electrician and worker of wood and paint. He loved motors and motor vehicles, and among his early mentors were chauffeurs of some of the greatest and finest early autos. There were few things he could not do or accomplish, if the need arose.

He loved his family, and he knew and loved many people. One of his gifts, throughout his life, was the ability to make new connections and friends. Few who met Sloat ever forgot him.

He is survived by sister Martha Ellis, brothers Newton and Bryant Hodgson, first wife Nancy (Weadock) Whiting, son Tom, daughter Michele, daughter in law Christine Gault, stepsons David and Tory Horton, granddaughters Lucy Marie Hodgson, Emma Martin Thomas, Darcy Jean Hodgson and Rebecca Robin Hodgson, grandson Ian Sloat Phillips and numerous cousins, nephews and nieces.

A memorial service will be held at the West Falmouth Quaker Meetinghouse at 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6.

Contributions in his memory may be made to Falmouth Academy, the Penikese School, the Falmouth League of Women Voters or the charity of your choice.