The Designer — Rickard Sarby

Rickard Sarby (1912-1977) was a fascinating, multi-talented and self-educated man with extraordinary gifts and creativity — and the designer of the Finn.

He was born in 1912 in a small village called Pesarby, about 50 km north of Uppsala, Sweden. The name of the village gave rise to the family name. He was the youngest of four brothers and one sister, and his only formal education was six years at Swedish elementary school.

Rickard came from a very talented and creative family, each artistic or musical in some way. When the family moved to Uppsala in the 1930s, Rickard was educated as a barber and for many years ran one of the biggest barbershops in Uppsala, famous for its imaginative, prize-winning Christmas window displays.

A canoe sailor

Soon after arriving in Uppsala, Rickard was introduced to canoe sailing and skate sailing by his oldest brother Ernst, an enthusiast and driving force of Uppsala Kanotförening. The club, founded in 1916, was a unique breeding ground for small boat sailing, and it was in this environment that Rickard was in his element — designing, building and racing sailing canoes.

He was an innovator in boat and sail building techniques, including producing laminated waterproof paper sails after World War II when sail cloth was hard to obtain. He also designed the original flap bailer that was later commercialised as the "Elvstrøm" bailer.

A lasting legacy

All this experience came to a head in the Finn. His approach was to sketch full-size drawings while also building scale models. The first Finn was built in double diagonal planking. Sarby's legacy cannot be overstated: his design was so perfect that it has remained at the forefront of international and Olympic competition for six decades. The hull shape, developed from the Swedish sailing canoes and controlled by a strict set of class rules, remains untouched to this day.