Friends and family of Sean Day, a South African maritime industry pioneer and philanthropist who died in July, gathered in October to pay tribute to Day at the Lawhill Maritime Centre which he helped create.
Day also helped set in motion a maritime training programme that remains a pivotal ingredient in South Africa’s blue economy. His contribution across multiple decades was immense and a lodestar for private sector involvement in nation building.
Brian Ingpen, one of Day’s close friends and co-founder of the Lawhill Programme, paid tribute to Day in an editorial column published in the Cape Times. He described Day as a gentleman with a firm moral compass and independent spirit – qualities he possibly inherited from his parents who were strongly opposed to the Apartheid regime. Day was at school at SACS in Cape Town and later enrolled at the South African Merchant Marine Academy. He studied at UCT and later at Oxford University, having received a Rhodes Scholarship. “While a student at UCT, he competed in the first Cape to Rio Yacht Race—the longest continent-to-continent sailing yacht race in the southern hemisphere—as a crew member aboard the Merchant Marine Academy boat,” Ingpen said. He worked in commercial shipping in Hong Kong and Canada before settling in America. “Throughout his life, Mr Day worked to create better educational opportunities in South Africa. In 1997, alongside his former teacher and mentor, John Ince, Seán started the Friends of South African Schools (FOSAS) to ensure equitable education post-apartheid.”
“He was also a strong supporter of the Lawhill Maritime Centre in Simon’s Town,” Ingpen wrote.
Day was also a voracious traveler who visited at least 123 countries, including an expedition to the North Pole for his 60th birthday.