A titan of the property development industry, CYCA Member and long-time Youth Sailing Academy supporter, Lang Walker AO, passed away peacefully at home on Saturday at the age of 78, surrounded by his family.

In a statement issued yesterday, the family said they were “heartbroken at the loss of a great man who was also a devoted and loving husband, father and grandfather.

“His visionary projects and philanthropy changed the lives of so many people”.

The property developer and broad-ranging philanthropist founded what was to become Walker Corporation with his father 60 years ago – a company which began as an excavation group but grew to manage thousands of major urban and community projects across Australia, Malaysia, Canada and the U.S.

Developments locally include residential/commercial developments in Rhodes, Macarthur and Appin, the Woolloomooloo Finger Wharf, Parramatta Square, Broadway Shopping Centre, Collins Square in Melbourne, Hope Island Queensland and Riverlea outside Adelaide.

As a philanthropist, Lang also contributed and gave so much of his time to the arts, education, social welfare, health care and sport.

Walker personally supported the Australian Olympic Sailing Team and CYCA Youth Sailing Academy and urged other owners to “contribute to sailing clubs and academies to support the next generation of sailing talent”.

Lang had a lifelong love affair with the ocean. He was a diver and an active and successful sailor who at the age of nine, raced in Yowie Bay and later worked as a deckhand in his youth. With his first boat, a Vaucluse Junior (VJ), he began what was to become a succession of boats named Kokomo – the name later passed onto many of his other boats including several superyachts. It also became the name for his private island resort in Fiji.

He was heavily involved with one-design racing and was a major supporter of the Australian Farr 40 Association. He won the 2007 and 2008 Australian Championships on Kokomo and competed around the world. One of his other favourite boats was the stunning soft carbon yacht Yarrawin which had a classic wooden boat exterior.

In 2015, Walker was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his services to the community.

Lang is survived by his wife Sue, three children and 10 grandchildren.
He will be sadly missed by the Club.