Erik Rickard Sarby (19 September 1912 – 10 February 1977) was a Swedish

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

. He competed in the mixed one-person

dinghy A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...

event at the 1948, 1952 and 1956 Olympics and finished in fourth, third and fifth place, respectively. 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.

Boat designer

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. The success of the subsequent prototype 'FINT' dinghy in sailing trials was sufficient to reverse its rejection in earlier rounds of selection. Further renamed Finn, it has remained an Olympic class ever since, thus being the longest-running class in the Olympic fleet.History of the Finn, at finnclass.org
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarby, Rickard 1912 births 1977 deaths Olympic bronze medalists for Sweden Sailors at the 1948 Summer Olympics – Firefly Sailors at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Finn Sailors at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Finn Olympic sailors of Sweden Swedish male sailors (sport) Olympic medalists in sailing Swedish yacht designers Uppsala Kanotförening sailors Medalists at the 1952 Summer Olympics People from Östhammar Municipality Sportspeople from Uppsala County