Mystic — Folk singer, lecturer, illustrator and chanteyman Don Sineti, who spent more than a quarter century performing at Mystic Seaport Museum and around the world, died January 6 after a short illness.

Sineti, 79, described as a gentle giant with a big voice, loved to act as a mentor to younger chanteymen as they learned the art of the sea chantey, a type of traditional folk song that served to synchronize work like hoisting sails or raising anchors on sailing ships.

“He was very proud to take new chanteymen onto a ship and let them sing chantey music the way it was written,” said Jim Mortimer, a friend of 25 years, and coworker at the Seaport.

“When he was singing at the Seaport, if you were on the bridge in Downtown Mystic, you could hear it,” Sineti’s wife, Mary Dansinghani said on Tuesday.

Mortimer described Sineti as a gregarious, talented and empathetic man who was always concerned for others.

“He was just a generally good guy, and he really liked teaching, so it’s a tragedy to all of us that we lost him so quickly,” Mortimer said.

Though best known locally for his role at the Seaport, Sineti, a Bloomfield native, was a man of many talents and passions, known internationally for his music and his work promoting conservation of whales.

As an illustrator a talent and passion he found as a child, Sineti funneled his interest in whales and dolphins into creating highly accurate depictions of many types of marine mammals which appeared in Connecticut’s State Register, Alaska Magazine, The Whale Watcher’s Guide, and various museums and galleries, including a showing at the United Nations and 30 pieces of his work which are part of the permanent collection at Hale Kohola Museum in Maui.

He used his broad talents and knowledge to educate, conducting lectures and workshops to promote the preservation of whales through the Connecticut Cetacean Society, which he co-founded in 1974, today known as Cetacean Society International.

“As a result of his activism in trying to save the various sea mammals, he is known throughout the pacific northwest and Hawaii,” said Marc Bernier, who worked alongside Sineti for the entirety of their 27 year careers at the Seaport and knew him for about 40 years.

“It was amazing how accepting and accommodating he was, and he was that way to the very end,” Bernier said, adding that his friend was universally loved and celebrated, in part due to his talents, but also his compassion.

Sineti served in the army during the Vietnam War, and joined though, as the only son of a widow, he could have avoided the draft.

“He said that he would not have someone else go in his place because even if he wouldn’t know it, he would always wonder if that person was killed,” said Dansinghani, noting that the war was a turning point in Sineti’s life.

“When he came back from Vietnam, he decided that since he had not been killed, he owed some obligation to make his life into something that would benefit other people and the environment,” she said.

Sineti spent most of his life as a bachelor, but met and fell in love with Dansinghani approximately five years ago. They married in the summer of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, and shared a profound depth of love that was evident to all around them.

No service arrangements have been made, but donations can be made in his memory to the Cetacean Society International.