Rolly Tasker

A sailor since the age of six, Australian Rolly Tasker gained an interest in the sport when his parents introduced him to model ships as a young boy. He built his first racing dinghy, including the sails, at the age of ten and began a journey that would encompass, throughout the course of his life, over 7000 competitive races. Following service in World War II, where he saw action at the infamous Battle of Ambon, he founded a sail-making business and began exporting his products in 1949. His fame in the sporting realm grew rapidly as he captured Australian national titles in the 12 Square meter Sharpie class every year from 1952 through 1956, the year in which he also won an Olympic silver medal alongside John Scott in the Two Person Heavyweight Dinghy, Mixed event at the Melbourne Summer Games.

In 1957 it was announced that the Flying Dutchman class would replace the 12 Square meter Sharpie event at the 1960 Summer Olympics and Tasker wasted no time earning his reputation in these vessels as well, winning the Australian National Championships in 1957, 1958, 1960, and 1962 as well as the World Championship in 1958. At the 1960 Summer Games, however, he finished 18th out of 31 teams. After becoming the World B Class Catamaran champion in 1966 he switched to ocean racing and, from 1969 through 1985, rose to unprecedented fame in the Western Australian ocean racing scene through his countless victories and the numerous records he shattered while achieving them. Among his most notable appearances was the 1978 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race where, after being disqualified on a technicality, he sailed the race anyways with a five minute head start and completed the course 20 hours ahead of the official winner. He was also a participant in the notorious 1979 Fastnet race, where fifteen people died during disastrous weather and only 86 of the 303 starters finished.

Nearing 70 and now a member of the Western Australian Hall of Champions, having been inducted in 1986, Tasker was far from finished with his career. In 1994 he moved to Thailand and set up a new sail-making factory in Phuket, quickly turning it into a multi-million dollar business. He was made a member of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1996 and the Order of Australia in 2006; in 2008 he opened the Australian Sailing Museum, the same year his biography “Sailing to the Moon” came out, the title referencing the fact that he had sailed farther than the distance of the moon over the course of his career. Having suffered from skin cancer since the age of 40, the result of decades spent under the sun at sea, he battled the disease for over half his life until he died of its effects in June 2012 at the age of 86.