Don Street

[Stingo]

Apparently Don Street, of Caribbean charts and cruising guides fame, has passed away. I don't know any other details except it is suspected he passed away from old age.

 

[Tradewinds]

A life well lived. His guides for the Caribbean were useful back in the day.
Condolences to his family.

 

[AndrewB]

He must have been in his 90's. I found his Caribbean Guides indispensible when I first sailed there. I still have his "Cruising Guide to the Eastern Caribbean" first published in 1964. We met him when we were moored together in Limehouse Dock during 2004. (The bows in the foreground are my former boat). He sold Iolaire around 2010 and she was lost about 5 years ago.

 

[Bajansailor]

A life well lived, absolutely! I also still have an early edition of his Cruising Guide to the Eastern Caribbean.

I met / bumped into Don on various occasions in the Caribbean, and he was invariably lurking under a large Tilley hat while holding a bottle of cold Heineken and offering his opinions on everything related to sailing to a fascinated audience . He must have been the best unpaid advertisement ever for Heineken!

And at the Brest '92 classic boat festival - he had sailed his classic Dragon from his home port of Glandore to Douarnanez and Brest with his son Richard and friend Niall - I think it was about a 3 day passage each way, and they were taking turns to sleep on sails under the tiny Dragon 'cuddy' cabin. Hard core sailors, and Don would have been in his 60's then.

And at St Georges, Bermuda a few years later, in May 1995 - I was crewing on a pal's S & S 34, and we took 11 days from St Maarten, including some motoring; Iolaire took 9 days from St Thomas, and of course they had no engine...... the wind was on the nose when they approached the very narrow entrance to St Georges harbour, and I remember seeing them short tacking up this channel, sailing in to the harbour, and then rounding up alongside the Customs dock with a flourish, and still under full sail.
They stayed a few days, and I think there were 4 or 5 crew on board - I helped them load provisions on board for the next leg to the Azores, and the food appeared to almost be an afterthought, in comparison to the quantity of Heineken taken on board......
I met them again a couple of months later at Cowes Classics, and was honoured to be invited to sail for the day on Iolaire - except that there was absolutely no wind that day. So we drifted with the tide, and later drifted back a bit when the tide turned, but we did have to accept a tow in the end to get back to the mooring. A very pleasant day out on the Solent, getting sunburnt, and partaking of a few greenies....

Sail on Don, on that eternal broad reach with Iolaire, still clutching that ubiquitous greenie - you were a real legend.

Edit - seen on another thread - here is a nice tribute to Don by W M Nixon -
Don Street RIP

 

[Wansworth]

Met very briefly Mr Street in Astilleros Lagos in Bouzas,Vigo…….Who he highly recommended.Very serious people in all aspects of yacht work

 

[Bajansailor]

I just came across this nice tribute to Don in Cruising World by Cap'n Fatty Goodlander -

RIP, Squeaky | Cruising World

 

[DownWest]

Think I remember a tale from him about crewing on an old British yacht that had a petrol engine. He was so concerned about the risk, that whenever it was being started, he and another US crew would sit sit out on the bowsprit to be as far away from the explosion as possible.

Good find Banjan!

 

[Bajansailor]

@DownWest I am not surprised - I can just see them out on the bowsprit (no doubt still with greenies in hand). Don disliked infernal combustion engines so much that a more likely tale might be that he promptly took some tools to the beast and hurled it overboard, or donated it to a local sailing club for use as a dinghy mooring....... I think that this might have been the fate of Iolaire's original engine

Here is a nice photo of Iolaire at Antigua Classics from the Cruising World link.