Stuart Hodge Walker was an American Olympic yachtsman, writer, and a professor of pediatrics. He competed as a sailor at the Olympic Games; won many national and international championships in different classes and wrote over ten books.
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 from 1944 until her death on September 30, 2012. They have two daughters Susan and Lee. Walker was assigned in 1946 as a medical officer to the Army of Occupation of Japan. 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. After Frances' death, Stuart married Patricia in 2013. Sailing in the International 14 class, 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. Walker authored ten books on sailboat racing, sail trim, competitive behavior, and low level wind flow, and was a lecturer and contributor to sailing magazines. He helped found the Severn Sailing Association. He published his 11th book, "Travels with Thermopylae", in 2015, which describes a year of sailing and discovery in central Europe. 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 Technical Committee that included the major builders and which has been successful in openly recognizing and solving problems before they become significant. He travelled on a yearly basis to Europe to compete in Soling regattas.
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.. After his retirement, Stuart continued sailing local races at the Severn Sailing Association in Annapolis. He died on November 12, 2018 in Annapolis from stomach cancer at the age of 95.
