Full name Stuart Hodge Walker Role Writer Nickname(s) Stu Height 1.75 m | Nationality United States Weight 70 kg Name Stuart Walker | |
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Born April 19, 1923 (age 100) ( 1923-04-19 ) Brooklyn, New York Class(es) Star, Penguin, International 14, 5.5 Metre, Soling, Yngling, International One Design, Etchells and Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe Club Severn Sailing Association Books Advanced Racing Tactics, The tactics of small boat racing, A manual of sail trim, The sailor's wind, Winning - the psycholo | ||
Stuart H. Walker (born April 19, 1923) is an Olympic yachtsman, writer and a professor of pediatrics from the US. He has competed as a sailor at the Olympic Games; won many national and international championships in different classes; and published over ten books.
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Biography
Born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York, Walker attended school in suburban Hartsdale and Bronxville, college at Middlebury College, and medical school at New York University. He was married to Frances (née Taylor) from 1944 until her death on September 30, 2012. They have two daughters Susan (1946) and Lee (1950). He and Frances lived in Western Australia for three periods, two of them of six months each: once in 1981–82, while on sabbatical leave, studying water balance in aboriginal children, and once as a reporter for several U.S. publications during the 1988 America's Cup at Fremantle. After Francis death in 2012 Stuart remarried with Patricia in spring 2013.
Walker was assigned in 1946 as a medical officer to the Army of Occupation of Japan ( United States Army 11th Airborne Division (Paratroops)). After reassignment from the army, he started a pediatric practice in Annapolis in 1953. Stuart became a full-time Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1961 and was Chief of Pediatrics at Mercy Hospital in Baltimore until his retirement in 1984.
Walker was a member of every American team in international matches between 1961 and 1971 and was, in 1963, the first American to win Bermuda's Princess Elizabeth Trophy and, in 1964, England's Prince of Wales Cup. He was a member of the American Olympic Team, sailing a 5.5 Meter at the 1968 Games and the Pan-American Games, and a Soling in the 1979 Pan-American Games and the 2012 Vintage Yachting Games .
He is the author of ten books on sailboat racing, sail trim, competitive behavior, and low level wind flow, and is a lecturer and contributor to sailing magazines. He was the primary force in the founding of the Severn Sailing Association.
Walker was President of the International Soling Class from 1991 through 1994 . In this role he successfully campaigned to keep the Soling in the 1996 Olympics and to continue the fleet/match format. He also established a strong, well organized Technical Committee that included the major builders and which has been successful in openly recognizing and solving problems before they become significant. He travels on a yearly basis to Europe to compete in Soling regattas, where he regularly wins championships.
Retirement
After finishing fifth at the eighth race of the 2016 European Championship Soling at Traunsee, Austria and leading the fleet to the weather mark in the ninth and last race, Walker announced his retirement from sailing on May 23, 2016 due to macular degeneration. With his retirement he completed a period of 47 years of Soling sailing.