Rolland "Rolly" Tasker AM (born 21 March 1926) is an Australian sailor who won Australia’s first sailing medal at the 1956 Olympic Games

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

 in Melbourne. He and Malcolm (Huck) Scott won a silver medal in their 12m² Sharpie

12 Square meter Sharpie (dinghy)

The 12m Sharpie was designed in 1931 by the Kroger Brothers. The peak of the class was in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. To this day, the original design has been preserved, and the class is sailed competitively in the ,, , and...

 after the New Zealander Peter Mander

Peter Mander

Peter Garth Mander was a former New Zealand yachtsman and Olympic Gold medal winner. With Jack Cropp, Mander won the Sharpie class at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. Mander then retired from competitive yachting, but made a comeback and was selected to compete in the Finn class at the 1964...

 failed to disqualify himself and Rolly had not officially protested. In 1958 Tasker won the Flying Dutchman

Flying Dutchman (dinghy)

thumbthumbThe Flying Dutchman is a 20-foot one-design high-performance two-person monohull racing dinghy. Developed in the early 1950s, its large sail area per unit weight allow it to plane easily when sailing upwind. The boat utilizes a trapeze harness for the crew and hiking straps for the...

 World Championship.

From 1969 to 1985 Tasker dominated ocean racing in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

 with five sister yachts all called Siska. In the 1978 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

The Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race is hosted by the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, starting in Sydney, Australia on Boxing Day and finishing in Hobart. The race distance is approximately...

, Siska IV was denied official starter status on a technicality. Tasker started five minutes ahead of the fleet and crossed the finish line 20 hours ahead of line honours winner Apollo. He won numerous other ocean racing events in his career including taking line honours and first place in the Queen Victoria Cup off Cowes

Cowes

Cowes is an English seaport town and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. Cowes is located on the west bank of the estuary of the River Medina facing the smaller town of East Cowes on the east Bank...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. He took first place in A-division of the disastrous 1979 Fastnet race

1979 Fastnet race

The 1979 Fastnet race was the twenty-eighth Fastnet race, a yachting race competition held since 1925, generally every two years. In 1979, it was the climax of the five-race Admiral's Cup competition, as it had been since 1957....

. In the Parmelia Yacht Race

Parmelia Yacht Race

The Parmelia Race was a one-off yacht race held in 1979 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first British settlers at the Swan River Colony. The race started from Plymouth, England and finished at Fremantle, Western Australia...

 from Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

 to Fremantle

Fremantle, Western Australia

Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...

 in 1979 he took line honours and the win.

Tasker was inducted into the Western Australian Hall of Champions

Western Australian Hall of Champions

In 1983, the Sportswriters' Association of Western Australia proposed a Western Australian Hall of Champions to honour past athletes from the state who had made a significant impact in their sport...

 in 1986 and the Sport Australian Hall of Fame in 1996. He became a Member of the Order of Australia

Order of Australia

The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...

 in 2006 for his services to sailing.

He operates a sail-making business based in Phuket

Phuket Province

Phuket , formerly known as Thalang and, in Western sources, Junk Ceylon , is one of the southern provinces of Thailand...

, Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 called Rolly Tasker Sails.

In April 2008 Tasker opened The Australian Sailing Museum

Australian Sailing Museum

The Australian Sailing Museum is in Mandurah, Western Australia.Owned and built by Rolly Tasker, the Australian Sailing Museum exhibits a comprehensive display of yacht models, the history of Australian sailing, and sailors, from the 19th century...

 in Mandurah

Mandurah, Western Australia

Mandurah is the second-largest city in Western Australia and is located approximately south of the state capital, Perth.The city attracts a large number of tourists, including many international visitors...

 with exhibits of the America's Cup races from 1851 and famous sailors from Australian sailing competitions. Twelve life-like icons of the sailing world form part of the display, along with over 200 model yacht fleet class examples of a scale 1" to the foot.

His biography, "Sailing to the Moon" was published in 2008. It is written by Roland Perry

Roland Perry

Roland Perry is a Melbourne-based author best known for his books on history, especially Australia in the two world wars. His Monash: The Outsider Who Won The War, won the Fellowship of Australian Writers' 'Melbourne University Publishing Award' in 2004...

and describes Tasker's extensive sailing and business activities.