The Biography of Rolly Tasker,
Australia’s greatest Yachtsman, will be published by Pennon in March 2008.
Rolly Tasker won more races nationally and internationally than any other sailor. Yet his lifetime victory
sweep of seas high and low is but the tip of the iceberg of a remarkable life.
During an Eighty year (unfinished) journey, this son of a digger hero encountered
the Japanese at Ambon during WW2; dominated small boat races; won and lost Gold at the Melbourne Olympics; became
Flying Dutchman World Champion in 1958; was in an Australian squad competing for the America’s Cup; became the
Catarmaran world champion in 1966; was in Hong Kong during riots of 1967; became caught up in the chaos when
the Indonesian army invaded East Timor and massacred five Australian Journalists; moved up to Maxi boats with
the Siska series of big yachts, which were the fastest in the world; endured England’s 1979 Fastnet Race,
which claimed 15 lives and 23 yachts; dominated the Sydney to Hobart like no other, only to be disqualified
on a technicality; took on the murderous Thai Mafia; suffered seeing a daughter die of anorexia,
and battled a brutal skin cancer from all those decades under the sun that still threatens him.
Many notable sailors admired Tasker, including President John F. Kennedy, and
media moguls Frank Packer and Ted Turner. HRH Prince Charles was in the winning crew under Tasker in the 1979
Queen Victoria Cup---a race of 431 entrants, which included every major yachtsman and yacht in the world.
This event was arguably Tasker’s most successful victory.
Throughout a career split between Australia and all the world’s oceans, Tasker matured into an international
character and a genius for yacht creations. All his big wins over a career spanning half a century were on craft
he built himself---a unique achievement in the annals of world yachting. Along the way, he had three wives and
three children. Not surprisingly his prime love and obsession of sailing did not allow all his marriages to survive.
Dubbed The Bradman of the High Seas, Tasker has sailed further than the distance to the moon and back, and is one of the select
members of Australian sports international Hall of Fame. In business, this qualified accountant has no peer in the sail-making
business, which has brought him his fortune. In the creation of yachts, he had no peer in the natural skill in the
engineering of the fastest, most streamlined and durable boats that raced in the second half of the 20th century.
Roland Perry was granted exclusive access to Tasker’s personal archive and conducted interviews with him,
all his family, closest friends, competitors and enemies. This enabled Perry to write a compelling,
intimate and at times controversial account of one of sport’s most dynamic and charismatic heroes.
