Rickard Sarby
Erik Rickard Sarby ( born September 19, 1912 in Dannemora, Uppsala, † February 10, 1977 in Uppsala, Sweden) was a Swedish designer of canoe boats and sailors. He became internationally known by the construction of the Olympic one-man dinghy Finn dinghy or simply " Finn".
Olympic Summer Games 1952 in Helsinki
In January 1949, the Finnish Yacht Association [ Finnish Yachting Association ( FYA ) ] organized a design competition for a new Olympic one-man dinghy for the upcoming Olympic Summer Games 1952 in Helsinki ( Finland).
Rickard Sarby won the competition after a series of trial races with a design Fint, which had proved to be the fastest dinghy. In the hull shape the dinghy strongly resembled a canoe and was decidedly kept simple. On 15 May 1950, the FYA decided Fint as an Olympic one-man dinghy to take over. The name was changed to Finn and used as a sailing mark two blue waves. Later, the FYA acquired the full rights to build the Finn.
Rickard Sarby provided in addition to the 1:1 designs also the first prototype. In the Finn class is fought since 1952 without interruption for Olympic medals. All well-known sailors in the world have fought in their career sailors times in the boot class Finn to top rankings.