Dick Townsend

Dick Townsend was born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, where his father was an employee of Wentworth Motors. Alongside his teammate, John Robertson, Townsend, then aged 20, was amongst the youngest competitors in the two person star-class sailing event at the London 1948 Olympics. A member of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club from an early age, Townsend and Robertson were students at Westdale Collegiate in Hamilton at the time of their Olympic participation. They won the right to represent Canada at the 1948 Olympics at the swallow class qualifying regatta held in Toronto, in which the pair won five out of the six laps of a triangle shaped course. In London, Townsend and Robertson got off to a promising start in their event with top-three finishes in two of the first three races, but eventually finished seventh overall in the final standings with a total score of 2,807 points.

Townsend was also an active skier in his youth after first taking up the sport at Cedar Springs Ski Club in his hometown, where he also raced. In his 20s, he became a ski instructor at Mont-Tremblant in Quebec’s Laurentian Mountains under pioneering coach and racer Ernie McCulloch. He also served a stint on the Simpson-Sears Sports Advisory Council as a ski pro. A founding member of The Georgian Peaks Ski Club in Ontario’s Blue Mountains, he served as president there from 1972 to 1975 where he continued to race in club and local championships. He also remained involved in sailing and was Rear Commodore of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club in the 1960s. Townsend continued to reside in Burlington, Ontario until his death in 1982; at the time he was working as a sales manager at a ceramic tile manufacturing company.