Jock Sturrock

Jock Sturrock

Medal record
Sailing
Representing  Australia
Olympic Games
	1956 Melbourne	5.5 metre class

Alexander Stuart "Jock" Sturrock MBE (14 May 1915 in Melbourne – 11 July 1997 in Noosa Heads) was a noted Australian yachtsman who won over four hundred national and state championship yachting races.

He won his first Australian yachting championship in the 12-foot Cadet dinghy "Monsoon" in 1932 at the age of 12 in Perth. At 18 he helped pioneer the introduction of the International Star Class into Australia, and won the first 8 Australian championships in that class (between 1935 and 1947). He was 3-time Australian 6 Metre class champion (1946, 1947, and 1949), 3-time Australian Dragon class champion (1953/54, 1954/55, and 1955/56), and 2-time Australian 5.5 Metre class champion (1956 and 1959).

He represented Australia in four Olympic Games, 1948 London (Star class), 1952 Helsinki (Dragon class), 1956 Melbourne (Bronze Medal, 5.5 Metre Class), and 1960 Rome (5.5 Metre class). He was the Australian flag-bearer at the opening ceremony of the Rome Olympic Games.

He achieved international public recognition when he skippered Australia's first challenge for the America's Cup in Gretel in 1962. Although defeated 4 to 1 by Weatherly, Gretel's victory in the second race was the first by a challenger since 1934, and is widely recognised as the first of the events that resurrected the America's Cup as an international sporting competition. He also skippered Dame Pattie, Australia's second America's Cup challenger, in 1967, which was beaten 4–0 by the highly controversial defender Intrepid.

He also represented Australia multiple times as an ocean racing skipper in the Admiral's Cup (England) and the Kenwood Cup (Hawaii), managed two successful Australian campaigns for the [International C-Class Catamaran Challenge] (the 'Little America's Cup'), and sailed in 11 Sydney–Hobart races.

Between 1972 and 1980 he was a member of the Olympic Fund Raising Committee.

In 1962 Jock Sturrock was Australian of the Year,^[1] Australian Yachtsman of the Year, and Australian Sportsperson of the Year (the Lindy Trophy). In 1975 he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to yachting.^[2] Sturrock was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.^[3] Other tributes to him include a street named after him (Sturrock Place) in the Canberra suburb of Gordon, a court (Sturrock Court) in the Melbourne suburb of Mill Park and a bridge in Noosa, Queensland.

References