Erik Rickard Sarby (19 September 1912 – 10 February 1977) was a Swedish sailor. He competed in the mixed one-person dinghy event at the 1948, 1952 and 1956 Olympics and finished in fourth, third and fifth place, respectively.[1]

Rickard Sarby
Personal information
Full nameErik Rickard Sarby
Born19 September 1912
Dannemora, Sweden
Died10 February 1977 (aged 64)
Uppsala, Sweden
Sport
SportSailing
Sailing career
ClubUppsala KF
Medal record
Sailing
Representing  Sweden
Olympic Games
Bronze medal – third place 1952 Helsinki Finn class

Born in a village near Uppsala, Sarby moved to the main city in the 1930s. There he worked as a hairdresser and sailed in free time. He later became a boat designer.[2]

Boat designer

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Having taken up the design of sailing canoes (his success with C-class designs is noted in the Swedish Wikipedia), Rickard Sarby submitted an entry, named 'FIN', to a 1948 competition for the design of a single-handed dinghy suitable for both local and Olympic use. The design was based on an earlier open class E double-ended sailing canoe.[3][4] The success of the subsequent prototype 'FINT' dinghy in sailing trials was sufficient to reverse its rejection in earlier rounds of selection.[5][6] Further renamed Finn, it remained an Olympic class from Helsinki 1952 to Tokyo 2020, thus being the longest-running class in the Olympic fleet.[7]

References

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  1. ^ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Rickard Sarby". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020.
  2. ^ "Richard Sarby". Swedish Olympic Committee.
  3. ^ Motor Boating and Sailing Aug 1972, p. 63
  4. ^ Deck Layout of a Finn and further background, at harken.co.uk
  5. ^ 'The Birth of the Finn', at classefinn.it
  6. ^ Peter Mohilla and Richard Hart: 'History of the Finn Rules' (part 1), at classefinn.it
  7. ^ History of the Finn, at finnclass.org