{"id":8855,"date":"2012-07-04T13:51:57","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T18:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/?p=8855"},"modified":"2014-06-27T03:32:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T03:32:23","slug":"rolly-tasker-australias-first-olympic-sailing-medalist-dies-at-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/2012\/07\/rolly-tasker-australias-first-olympic-sailing-medalist-dies-at-86\/","title":{"rendered":"Rolly Tasker, Australia&#039;s First Olympic Sailing Medalist, Dies at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Rolly.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8856 alignright\" title=\"Rolly\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Rolly-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>Western Australia&#8217;s pre-eminent yachtsman, Rolly Tasker, has died at his home on the Mandurah canals after an illness.<\/p>\n<p>Roland Leslie Tasker, born in Perth on March 21, 1926, was Australia\u2019s first Olympic sailing medallist when he won a silver medal sailing a Sharpie at the 1956 Melbourne Games.<\/p>\n<p>That success included another of the nation\u2019s renowned yachtsmen, Malcolm &#8216;Huck&#8217; Scott, as crew. Two years later, he won his first world championship in the Flying Dutchman class.<img title=\"More...\" src=\"http:\/\/bwsailing.com\/news\/wp-includes\/js\/tinymce\/plugins\/wordpress\/img\/trans.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Tasker went on to win many championsips in his dinghies, all called\u00a0<em>Falcon<\/em>, until he took on ocean racing and between 1969 and 1985, he dominated the competition with five yachts, all called\u00a0<em>Siska<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1978 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race,\u00a0<em>Siska IV<\/em> was denied official starter status on a technicality. Undaunted, Tasker started five minutes ahead of the fleet and crossed the finish line 20 hours ahead of line honours winner <em>Apollo<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mysailing.com.au\/news\/vale-rolly-tasker-australia-s-first-olympic-medallist-dies-at-age-86\">www.mysailing.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Western Australia&#8217;s pre-eminent yachtsman, Rolly Tasker, has died at his home on the Mandurah canals after an illness. Roland Leslie Tasker, born in Perth on March 21, 1926, was Australia\u2019s first Olympic sailing medallist when he won a silver medal sailing a Sharpie at the 1956 Melbourne Games. That success included another of the nation\u2019s renowned yachtsmen, Malcolm &#8216;Huck&#8217; Scott, as crew. Two years later, he won his first world championship in the Flying Dutchman class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}