Bernard Goldhirsh, 63; Established Sail and Inc. Magazines

Bernard A. Goldhirsh, 63, founder and former publisher of Sail and Inc. magazines, died of complications from a brain tumor Sunday in Boston.

Goldhirsh, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., began sailing while attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduating in 1961, he directed the science department at New Prep, a private school in Cambridge, Mass.

He launched Sail in 1970, using $20,000 borrowed from friends to publish the first issue of the education-oriented consumer publication.

“People told me, ‘You can’t compete with Yachting [magazine],’ but we did,” he told the Boston Globe in 1995, 15 years after selling Sail for $10 million.

Goldhirsh, who was involved in several other publishing ventures, founded Inc. in 1979. He sold the “magazine for growing companies” in 2000 for an estimated $200 million and gave 10% of the proceeds to his employees.