Sloat F. Hodgson

Biography
Sloat was born in Atlanta, Georgia on May 17, 1911. He was the fourth of seven children of Frederick Grady Hodgson and Mary Crocker Fassett. Although blessed with a high IQ, he was not a conventional student and found the requirements of college curricula to be not his "cup of tea." He spent one year at Princeton and then went to Rollins College where the fun and games were too tempting to pay enough attention to studies. While at Rollins he developed an erratic heart - later diagnosed as congenital malformation of the atrial valve. The valve was replaced with a pig valve when Sloat was in his seventies. In 1947 he married Nancy Weadock in West Falmouth and they had two children, Tom and Michele. The marriage ended in divorce in 1955 and in 1960, he married Ariel Camp Horton who had two grown children from a previous marriage. In 1951 he went to work for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution as a Research Technician staying there until his retirement in 1973. His boss was Dr. Henry Stommel, whom Sloat considered the most brilliant man he ever knew. In the late 1950s Sloat spent three years in Bermuda recording sea temperatures of the currents around the islands. Sloat had his own lab and shop at WHOI where he repaired battered equipment from deep sea experiments and constructed many specialized pieces of equipment for recording sea temperature. Aside from his work, Sloat's great passions were small sailboating, reading, and golf. He considers his life work to be a book entitled Hog Island Racers, Chronicles of the Launch Boy which contains stories of small sailboat racing with frequent references to his attitude on life.

Interview Summary
Narrator: Sloat F. Hodgson
Interviewer: Frank Taylor
Videographer: None
Sponsor: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Date: May 15, 2000
Place: Sloat's home in West Falmouth, Mass.
Format: 2 audiocassettes, transcript available

Abstract
The interview covers Sloat's early life in Atlanta, Georgia, his misadventures in higher education, and a variety of jobs before he settled at WHOI. The bulk of the interview concerns his work at WHOI as a Research Technician under Dr. Henry Stommel. The three years he spent in Bermuda are discussed and his work with bathythermographs and other sea temperature measuring devices is the major topic on the second of the two tape cassettes. Interwoven throughout the interview is Sloat's love for small sailboating.