Obituary: Cor Don

In April Cor Don was annoyed to find himself prevented from attending an editorial board meeting. It was the first, as far as we were aware, that he had ever missed. Later we learned that he had that day to undergo an initial medical examination. After several more came the terrible diagnosis of incurable cancer.



Cor was born in 1929 in IJmuiden, the town on the Dutch North Sea coast where ships pass through the great locks into the port of Amsterdam. The sea continued to play a great role in his life: only consider his lifelong career and the unending pleasure that he took in sailing his own boat, almost from his own back yard!



He attended high school during the difficult years of German occupation of the Netherlands. Upon leaving school after the war he studied for a year at Delft Technical University, but decided his love for the sea would be better served by a nautical career. He successfully applied for entry to the Royal Naval Academy and subsequently became an officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy. After various naval appointments he found his favourite niche in the Hydrographic Service. The beginning of the 1960s saw him studying Geodesy at Delft University, after which he was appointed head of the section Scientific Research (presently called Marine Geodesy) of the NL-HO.



In the late 1960s Cor decided a career in the private sector would better suit him and left the Navy to work respectively for Cesco, Fugro-Cesco and Osiris. Working for these businesses Cor became one of the pioneers in surveying for oil companies using then modern positioning equipment such as Syledis. He went on to start a company with a colleague; Bennex was active in selling and servicing survey equipment.



Cor loved travelling to see new things and meet new people, and his work took him to many parts of the world. His happiest times were his years in Singapore during the early seventies, when he had his family with him. This part of the world, where he had also surveyed with the RNLN in Netherlands New Guinea, had a special place in his heart and he returned whenever possible, once on behalf of a school for blind children in Indonesia, for which he collected money in The Netherlands.



After his retirement Cor remained as active as ever, especially in the field of hydrography and in his private life as a freemason. He was one of the first members of the Hydrographic Society Benelux Branch. He chaired the organising committee of the successful HYDRO'96 conference and was chairman of the Hydrographic Society Benelux Branch from 1997 to 2003, a period during which he initiated restructuring of the international Hydrographic Society into a more modern and internationally orientated organisation.



It was at HYDRO'96 that the idea was born of starting an international magazine for the hydrographic survey world. Cor without hesitation took his place amongst the founding editors and up until the last was one of the pillars upon which our magazine, Hydro International, rested. Many of you will have met him at exhibitions and conferences, and read his editor-ial submissions. His contributions to Hydro did not always appear under his own name; the interviews are a case in point. He was looking forward to a celebration of the result of ten years of his work as an editor, a task he performed with both dedication and love. Although it was not to be granted him to celebrate this anniversary, he accepted the facts of his disease. When Egon Bakker and I visited him for the last time he told us how lucky he felt to have been able to work in hydrography, a field that was his passion. He considered the opening of Hydro'96 by Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands to have been one of the highlights of his post-retirement work.



Cor Don was hardworking, modest, and never put himself in the foreground. He was a very friendly person, and always interested in modern techniques. Although past the usual age of retirement, he was still as active as a young man. The hydrographic community will miss his passion, his enthusiasm and his friendly and stimulating personage and I am convinced that everyone who had the luck to meet and work with him will subscribe to this.



We wish his family the strength they need to miss this fine man.



Leeke van der Poel



Cor Don, founding editor Hydro International, born 14th July 1929; died 5th August 2006.