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). He finished the event twenty-ninth out of seventy boats and he and his crewmate were given a special prize for being the oldest and heaviest crew.

The fourth race was canceled due to high winds and the number of teenaged entrants. 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 twenty-fifth place out of seventy boats in the second race, and finished eighth in the third race. He entered the week-long National Championships at Lough Derg, and finished thirty-ninth out of a fleet of sixty. Unable to find a reliable person to form his crew, Woods recruited any passing teenager to join him. After tiring of cruising around bays he entered novice competitions around Galway Bay. Woods purchased a Mirror for himself and named it Fred, after his dog. He joined Galway Bay Sailing Club, and learned to sail in one of the club's Mirrors. 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 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 adverts. After three years in London, Woods decided to write a novel, based on an old family story which had been told to him when he was a child, and moved to Ireland. Towards the end of the 1960s, Woods emigrated to England and lived in Knightsbridge, London while continuing to work in advertising. After graduation he enrolled in the Air National Guard, spending two months in basic training before moving to New York, where he began a career in the advertising industry. Stuart Woods was born in Manchester, Georgia and graduated in 1959 from the University of Georgia, with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology.

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