Don Green: Royal Hamilton Yacht Club Hall of Fame

Photographer Sharon Green’s incredible career was shaped by her father’s interest in sailing. Her dad, Don Green, won the Canada’s Cup in 1978 with his yacht Evergreen, later spearheaded an America’s Cup campaign, and has now been recognized by Royal Hamilton Yacht Club (Hamilton, Ont) as a 2015 inductee to their Hall of Fame.

As the April 2015 CRUISING WORLD magazine describes it:
Although she’s known as one of the world’s leading yacht racing photographers, Sharon Green’s roots lie in family cruising. In his teens, her father Don had circumnavigated the globe aboard Irving and Exy Johnson’s legendary brigantine Yankee, and he passed his passion on to his offspring.

“My youth was spent day sailing on our Bluenose 25, Yellowbird on Lake Ontario,” says Green, who was just seven years old when she first took the helm. “Much of my passion, knowledge, and experience stems from those blissful days of sailing with my family.”

One summer while Green was away studying photography at the Banff School of Fine Arts (she envisioned being “the next Ansel Adams”), her father commissioned a custom C&C41 Evergreen, to challenge for the 1978 Canada’s Cup. Green returned to find her home swarming with the all-star crew, which included Olympic gold medalist Lowell North. And Green had a front row seat: “I drank up inspiration from the great sailing dignitaries and legends of the time.”

In Don’s induction speech, he stressed the importance of family and crew to his sailing success.