Stuart H. Walker

Stuart H. Walker
Personal information
Full name Stuart Hodge Walker
Nickname(s) Stu
Nationality United States
Born (1923-04-19) April 19, 1923
Brooklyn, New York
Height 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight 70 kg (150 lb)
Sailing career
Class(es) Star, Penguin, International 14, 5.5 Metre, Soling, Yngling, International One Design, Etchells and Chesapeake Bay Log Canoe
Club Severn Sailing Association
College team Middlebury College

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.

Biography[1]

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[2] 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.[3]

Palmarès

Sailing World Hall of Fame
Member 1982 – selected as one of the world’s twenty outstanding yachtsmen.[4]
1968 Olympics
8th U.S. Olympic Team – 5.5 Meter
Team Meteorologist
Vintage Yachting Games
5th 2012  Italy – Soling
1979 Pan American Games
Gold 1979 U.S. Pan-American Team – Soling
European Championship Soling
2nd 2011  Austria
National Championships in Soling
Winner 1973   Switzerland
Winner 2003  United States
Winner 1983   Switzerland
Winner 1987   Switzerland
Winner 1988  Austria
Winner 1988  Hungary
Winner 2003  Netherlands
Winner 2007  Scotland
International 14
Member U.S. International Teams 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1969 and 1971
Winner 1961 Princess Elizabeth Trophy (1st American ever) –  Bermuda
Winner 1962 Buzzard's Bay Bowl
Winner 1964 Prince of Wales Cup (1st American ever) – Lowestoft,  United Kingdom
Winner 1966 Yachting Magazine's One-of-a-Kind Regatta
Soling
Winner 1973 Great Lakes Championship
Winner 1973 Maritime Provinces Championship
Winner 1974 Atlantic Coast Championship
Winner 1982 Australian Gold Cup  Australia
Winner 1984 Erich Hirt Trophy  Germany
Winner 1984 Jungfrau Trophy   Switzerland
Winner 1985 Jungfrau Trophy   Switzerland
Winner 1988 European Lakes Cup
Winner 1992 Erich Hirt Trophy  Germany
Ice Bowl (Annapolis)
Winner 1955–2011 – (32 times out of 58)

Bibliography

Walker contributed to the sailing world by writing ten books on sports in general and on sailing specifically:

References

  1. ↑ Stuart Walker on YouTube.
  2. ↑ "Results Soling Europeans 2016". www.soling.com. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  3. ↑ [http://soling.com/indexmore.asp?IdArticle=2047&Seccion=Breaking News&Lengua=English "47 years sailing the Soling and a last good race"]. www.soling.com. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  4. ↑ "Members of the Sailing Hall of Fame". www.sailingworld.com. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
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