I just came here to post this news, you beat me to it. This is just awful. Lucie is the sweetest person you could ever meet, and Ben was such a great character.
My last memory of Ben was sailing down from Blackaller towards Angel Island right behind Ben in a borrowed Alerion 28. We were both going great guns and he looked happy.
Ben did at least one SHTP, maybe two?...in Mirage, their "mini-Georgia" (Georgia was their Van de Stadt cruising boat). Mirage and Starbuck were the two Van de Stadt sisterships in the SSS for years 'n years.
1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"