Sailing legend Don Street has passed away unexpectedly aged 93, at home in Glandore, Ireland, where he lived with his wife Trich.
Don was made an Honorary Member of the CA in 2021. He had been an ordinary member of the CA since 1999, but in his 90s decided to give up cruising, although he sailed his vintage Dragon at home in Ireland.
One of the more recent photos of Don Street in action afloat was taken at the major big-fleet Dragon regatta at San Remo in Italy, when his pure vintage classic Dragon had many much newer boats tucked in well astern. © Finn Bradburn
As a youngster Don was told by his family that he would never make money at sailing, but he ignored them all and started working as a professional skipper in the 1950s, moving down to the Caribbean and buying his engineless yawl 'Iolaire'. After numerous trips in many boats up and down the east coast of North America and across the Atlantic, Don wrote his first article for Yachting in 1964. There followed a series of Caribbean guides, a Transatlantic Crossing Guide, Ocean Sailing Yacht volumes 1 and 2, the Imray-Iolaire charts of the Caribbean & Atlantic (many of which still make use of Don’s research), and much more.
In his eighties Don was still writing technical articles for Cruising about topics such as dealing with hurricanes, proper dorades, and the need for industrial-strength bilge pumps. He believed passionately that props could be used to generate power – almost certainly accurately, but a few years ahead of the technology.
Camilla Herrmann, editor of Cruising, noted, "One of my predecessors said of Don, "The man is a legend, but his copy is a nightmare."
Camilla noted, "When I apologised for hacking Don’s prose, he told me1: ‘My writing career started as a result of two dinners with John Steinbeck. I was a guest of my charter party – John Fearnley, casting director to Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, and Bert Cheveloux who wrote Something Funny Happened On The Way To The Forum. During dinner we talked about whether you need talent to be a writer. After a lot of discussion, Steinbeck said 'Forget about talent. To be a writer it is a case of putting your ass on a hard wooden chair six days a week, six hours a day and writing.' Turning to me, he said 'Kid, you tell a good story, why don’t you try writing?' I replied 'I can’t spell or punctuate.' To which Steinbeck said 'What the hell do you think secretaries and editors are for? Write!!!!!'"
1 Don’s words, all written in caps, edited for punctuation and sense.
16 May 2024