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Displaying items by tag: Stuart Walker

14th November 2018

Stuart Walker, 1923-2018

American dinghy racing legend Stuart Walker has passed away at the age of 95.

Dr Walker was a paediatric specialist by day, but outside the hospital was a key figure in Annapolis, Maryland’s sailing scene — co-founding in the mid 1950s the Severn Sailing Association which still produces many of America’s top dinghy sailors.

An Olympian who represented the US in the International 14 class throughout the 1960s, Dr Walker was also an accomplished sailing writer, with a longstanding column for what’s now Sailing World magazine and numerous books on sailboat racing to his credit.

“Certainly my name has spread through my writing, but my articles would not have credibility if there wasn’t success behind it,” he told Annapolis’ Capital Gazette at a party for his 90th birthday.

Scuttlebutt Sailing News has more HERE.

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About Commander Bill King, Solo Circumnavigator

William Donald Aelian King was the last surviving submarine commander in the Second World War - in charge of the British Navy's T-class Telemachus that sank a Japanese sub in the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Sumatra, in 1944.

Decorated many times for his service by the end of the war, King became a trailblazing solo sailor.

At the age of 58, he was the oldest participant in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race sailing Galway Blazer II, a junk-rigged schooner he designed himself.

After a number of abortive attempts, including an incident with "a large sea creature", he finally completed his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1973.

Beyond his aquatic escapades, King settled with his wife Anita (who died in 1984, aged 70) at Oranmore Castle outside Galway after the war, where he later developed a pioneering organic farm and garden to help tackle his wife's asthma.

The round-the-world sailor and Galway native Bill King died on Friday, 21 September, 2012, aged 102.