Richard Scotty Scott - Hi Tech Watersports
He’s met Ike and Tina Turner over dinner, scuba dived with Jacques Cousteau’s son, and graced the pages of Look, Vogue, Life, Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar aboard a gorgeous yacht in Virgin Islands’ waters. Richard “Scotty” Scott, owner of Hi-Tech Watersports in St. Thomas, has had one heck of an interesting life.
“I was born in Newport Beach, California. My dad was in the Air Force, so we moved around a lot,” Scott says.
His love of the sea grew from coast to coast as his family moved from California to Bermuda. Later, he joined the Navy and headed to the Far East. “The waters of the South Pacific changed my life. They were beautiful, teeming with fish,” Scott explains.
Back in California, Scott worked for Jack Jensen Marine, rigging and racing Cal boats. A few years later, he delivered a boat to Florida and ended up flying to St. Thomas on the advice of two buddies that preceded him. “It was 1967 and the biggest charter company was The Moorings, with a dozen 33-foot boats,” Scott says.
Most of the charter boats at that time based out of the old Yacht Haven Marina. “I remember sleeping on the hotel’s roof in a sleeping bag,” says Scott. “One day, I met a big bald gentleman who looked like the embodiment of ‘Mr. Clean’. He asked me if I wanted to work on the boat as a boatswain. I said sure. It was a beautiful 80-foot vessel with a 100-foot spruce mast called Jacqueline.”
It was with the owner of Jacqueline, who also ran a trendy restaurant in San Francisco, thats how Scott met the Turners.
After three years of working a heavy charter schedule, Scott briefly returned to California, built his first catamaran – an 18.6-foot fiberglass model, and raced regularly from Los Angeles to San Diego. Three years later, he missed the Virgin Islands and returned.
“I went into the restaurant business, managing Villa Olga and bartending at the Mafolie Hotel for 13 years before Hurricane Hugo blew it away,” he tells.
It was in the early 1990s that Scott opened Hi-Tech Sailing Center in the former Crown Bay Marina, before moving to his current location at Gregorie East. “I sold windsurfing gear and boogie boards. But what I liked best was diving, especially treasure hunting in the harbor and diving for old bottles, cannon balls and other antiques.”
This love of diving led him into the dive repair business. “I always say, ‘if it ain’t broke, we can’t fix it’,” he says. “We rebuild all types of regulators, hydrotesting, you name it.”
But Scott, not content to work at one thing too long, is the entrepreneur behind Pirate Coffee. “I tasted this wonderful coffee on a trip to France and bought a roaster. I’ve been roasting it for ten years, but now it’s really catching on. I sell it in the shop.”
Looking back over his career, Scott says, “The days of the little people are over. Now we’ve got the big megayachts coming. You can’t dinghy in for lunch anywhere without someone charging you to tie up. We’re loosing that carefree spirit of the old days. I miss it.”
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