MICHAEL SWEENEY HUDNER

Michael S. Hudner, shipping pioneer and community leader, died peacefully at his home in Little Compton, Rhode Island, on May 6, 2026, after a ten-month battle with melanoma. He was 79. Mike was raised in Swansea, Massachusetts, and was educated at Phillips Academy Andover and Harvard College. He earned his J.D. from New York Law School at night while working in real estate finance during the day.

At Eastdil Realty in New York in the 1970s, Mike mastered financial structures for real assets and saw an opportunity to bring them to shipping. Partnering with a Norwegian shipping executive, he founded B+H Shipping Group in 1978 — a dream he actively built, betting on himself as he left the security of a salaried world.  "As a kid, I was always looking at the horizon, wondering what it would be like to go beyond it on a boat," he said. "Combining my passion for ships and innovative finance was like finding my personal star in the heavens and following it." He launched B+H from a small room off the kitchen of his Manhattan apartment, equipped with a phone and a telex machine operating under the handle “HUDSHIP.”

A pioneer in adapting sophisticated financial tools to international shipping, Mike launched three public companies in the late 1980s, issued the first single-B rated shipping bond in 1997, and over his career owned and raised capital for 140 ships. The January 1993 grounding of his tanker MV Braer off Scotland's Shetland Islands during one of the most intense North Atlantic cyclones on record was an emblematic test of his character. Mike responded immediately: he assembled a war room in the middle of the night, flew to London the next morning, and met the crisis head-on. Investigators ultimately absolved Mike and B+H entirely. From then on, he kept a photograph of the Braer above his desk as a touchstone to remind him of the marine environment's unforgiving nature and his own commitment to accountability and resilience.

Mike’s civic engagements were characterized by the same quality colleagues remarked upon most: the ability not only to generate a vision, but to communicate it persuasively and execute tirelessly. He served as a Governor-appointee to the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council; member of the Little Compton Harbor Commission; overseer and trustee of the Sea Education Association; trustee of the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School; director of Phoenix House of New England; trustee of the Boys' Club of New York; director of Grow Smart Rhode Island; director and president of Rhode Islanders Sponsoring Education (RISE); and member of the Roger Williams University School of Law Advisory Committee.

His most sustained commitment was to Mystic Seaport Museum, where he served as a trustee beginning in 2004, including two decades on the Executive Committee and, from 2019 to 2025, as Chairman of the Board. He championed the Museum's North End Transformation — distinguished, as a fellow trustee observed, by an instinct to identify the crux of the matter and move the institution forward. In 2016, the Museum recognized his dedication with the Robert G. Stone Award for Stewardship.

Salt water was a constant. Mike raced in several Newport Bermuda Races — five aboard Moonracer, his Ted Hood-designed Little Harbor sloop — completed a transatlantic crossing from Newport to Kinsale, Ireland, and cruised extensively throughout the Elizabeth Islands, downeast Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador. He was a member of the New York Yacht Club, The Racquet & Tennis Club, the Cruising Club of America, the Harvard Club of New York, Sakonnet Point Club, Sakonnet Golf Club, Sakonnet Yacht Club, Warren's Point Beach Club, The Newport Reading Room, The Redwood Library, and The North Haven Casino.

For all his successes, Mike was acutely aware that adversity had an even greater hand in shaping the man he was. The loss of his son Rip in 2004 and his wife Hope in 2016 affected him profoundly, deepening his compassion and human wisdom. He channeled both losses into empathy, guiding others through family members' mental illness, terminal diagnoses, and death. Through all life's peaks and troughs, he showed up — with a beaming smile, a hearty laugh, and an affectionate embrace. His path was defined by vision, courage, and determination; he embraced uncertainty, took calculated risks, and let his grit, integrity, and persistence carry him to lasting success. He was gratified — and tickled — when a spontaneous sidewalk interview in New York accumulated more than 21 million views online, prompting a longer format interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TiNEVIuMhU that garnered countless letters from viewers around the world thanking him for sharing his candid reflections on life, love, and risk.

Mike is survived by his wife, Delphine Eberhart of New York City; his daughter Bay Hudner, son-in-law Clay Wiske, and grandchildren Freeman and Hope of Oakland, Calif.; his brother Kennedy Hudner (Jennifer); his sisters Cornelia Futterman (Michael) and Nina Beitman (Harty); beloved stepchildren, nieces, and nephews; and innumerable friends. He is predeceased by his wife Hope F. Hudner and son M. Ripley Hudner.

A memorial service will be held in early autumn in Rhode Island. In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes contributions in his memory made to: the Rip Hudner Memorial Fund at Moses Brown School, Providence, RI; the Hudner Scholarship Fund at Phillips Academy Andover, Andover, MA; or Saint Anne’s Hospital, Fall River, MA.

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