Stuart Woods

Stuart Woods (born Stuart Chevalier Lee; January 9, 1938 – July 22, 2022) was an American novelist, known best for his first novel Chiefs and his series of novels featuring protagonist Stone Barrington.

Woods was a Georgia native, entered the advertising business after college graduation and lived in England and Ireland for almost a decade. He became an accomplished and competitive sailor. His interest in this pastime and his need for financing it provided the incentive to write for publication.

Woods’ initial literary efforts focused on sailing and expanded to include reviews of numerous British restaurants, inns and hotels. His seminal work Chiefs, inspired by his grandfather, a police chief, was adapted for television. Woods’ prolific Barrington series features the detective-lawyer, aided by a recurring cast of supporting characters, who handles lucrative cases which his law firm otherwise would rather not be associated with.

Woods broadened his pastimes to include piloting and yachting, and maintained residences in several states.

Early life

Stuart Woods was born in Manchester, Georgia, and graduated in 1959 from the University of Georgia, with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. After graduation, he enrolled in the Air National Guard, spending two months in basic training before moving to New York City, where he began a career in the advertising industry. Towards the end of the 1960s, Woods emigrated to England and lived in Knightsbridge, London while continuing to work in advertising. After three years in London, Woods decided to write a novel, based on an old family story that had been told to him when he was a child, and moved to Ireland. He moved into a converted barn on the grounds of Lough Cutra Castle near Gort, County Galway, and lived a near-solitary existence, except for spending two days a week in Dublin writing television commercials and print advertisements.

Sailing

Soon after settling in Ireland in 1973, Woods took up a new hobby of sailing, an activity that had interested him since the summer of 1966 in Castine, Maine, when friends had taken him on their boat. He joined Galway Bay Sailing Club, and learned to sail in one of the club's Mirrors. Woods purchased a Mirror for himself and named it Fred, after his dog. After tiring of cruising around bays, he entered novice competitions around Galway Bay. Unable to find a reliable person to form his crew, Woods recruited any passing teenager to join him. He entered the week-long National Championships at Lough Derg, and finished 39th out of a fleet of 60. It was Woods' best result of the season.

The following year, Woods sailed in as many races as he could leading up to the Mirror National Championships in Sligo. After retiring from the first race, he finished in 25th place out of 70 boats in the second race, and finished eighth in the third race. The fourth race was cancelled due to high winds and the number of teenaged entrants. He finished the event 29th out of 70 boats, and his crewmate and he were given a special prize for being the oldest and heaviest crew. For the rest of the season, he sailed around Ireland with a friend on a Snapdragon 24, and decided to compete in the 1976 Observer Single-handed Trans-Atlantic Race (OSTAR).

In the fall of 1974, Woods's grandfather died and bequeathed him enough money to buy a yacht suitable for the race. He ordered a Golden Shamrock-based yacht from Ron Holland, and worked with him on designing the interior suitable for single-handed racing and Woods' personal needs. Since his previous sailing experience consisted of "racing a 10-foot plywood dinghy on Sunday afternoons against small children, losing regularly", Woods spent 18 months learning more about sailing and celestial navigation, while his yacht was being built in Cork. He gained more boating experience by sailing from Ireland to England as part of the crew on STY Creidne, a training ship purchased by the Irish government for the Irish Naval Service, Irish Mist II, Ron Holland's Golden Apple, and as many other yachts that would accept him, amassing 1200 miles of offshore experience. He entered the August 1975 Multihull Offshore Cruising and Racing Association (MOCRA) Azores Race and asked fellow Galway Bay Sailing Club member Commander Bill King to join him.

To finance his MOCRA Azores Race and the OSTAR, Woods met with publishers about writing a book about his experience in the OSTAR, organized sponsorship for the races, and sent invitations and press releases about the launch of his yacht to the local and national Irish media, RTÉ, The Observer, and Yachting Monthly. Golden Harp was launched June 4, 1975. "Golden" was chosen so the boat followed the naming tradition of Ron Holland's other designs, the Golden Apple, Golden Shamrock, and Golden Delicious, and "Harp" as it has long been used as a symbol of Ireland.

Woods, King, and their third crewmember, Shirley Clifford, left from Portsmouth, England, for the Azores in August 1975. Clifford, who had complained of feeling ill the day before the race began, continued to feel worse, so Woods and King dropped her off on a coast guard boat near Plymouth, England, on the second day of the race. They arrived in Horta after sailing 1400 miles for 151⁄2 days. They were the smallest and last boat to finish, other than four boats that had retired from the race, but were disqualified for not competing with the full crew complement that had begun the race. King returned to Ireland almost immediately, but Woods spent a month in Horta before sailing Golden Harp the 1300 miles back to Ireland single-handedly to meet the OSTAR's qualifying cruise requirement of a minimum of 500 miles.