Sailing giant Olaf Harken recalled as ‘special person’
Executive ‘always treated people the same’
Olaf Harken, along with his brother, Peter, first got a taste of sailing when their father gave them an old ratty sailing boat to fix up.
Their love of sailing grew, as did a keen sense of building parts for the boats they sailed as broke college students. The experiences laid the groundwork for a company that would change the sailing landscape and alter the sport’s future.
Olaf, vice president and co-owner of Pewaukee-based Harken Inc., died Monday at age 80 after complications from Parkinson’s disease.
“He was a special person,” said sailing legend Harry “Buddy” Melges Jr., who won two Olympic medals. “He was always the same, whether he was with you or the king of Norway. It didn’t make any difference. He always treated people the same.”
The brothers transformed Harken Inc. into an international manufacturer specializing in performance sailing hardware and industrial solutions. Harken created the hugely successful ballbearing block, which became the preferred block for the best sailors in the world.
“He was a giant in the world of sailing,” said Chris Allen, the commodore at the Pewaukee Yacht Club. “Starting back in the 1960s, and more so when the hardware they created started getting used on America’s Cup boats, they became a household name internationally.”
Early years
The brothers were born in Indonesia at the beginning of World War II. When Japan invaded Indonesia in 1941, Peter, Olaf and their Swedish mother, Ulla, escaped to Borneo, according to a 2014 interview with Olaf Harken.
Their Dutch father, Johannes, stayed behind to fight in the small Dutch army before he was captured and imprisoned for five years.
Peter, Olaf and Ulla moved to New Zealand and then Australia. The three made it to San Francisco in 1944. Two years later, they were reunited with Joe.
Olaf graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in industrial engineering. He spent 31⁄2 years in the Navy as an officer on a destroyer in the North Pacific. According to the Harken website, Olaf ’s ship was one of the first combat ships in the Vietnam conflict.
The brothers started their company with little money in 1967 that at first focused on boat building, under the company name Vanguard. When the brothers introduced plastic ball bearings instead of steel ones, the future of sailing changed.
A year later was a pivotal moment for the company. The Harkens shopped their plastic ball bearing blocks, made by hand at the time, to distributors without much success. They showed the blocks, which allowed the sails to be released much more quickly, to Gary
Comer, the founder of Lands’ End.
“(Gary) was unique in that his catalogs were very descriptive,” Olaf told Lake Country Now in 2014. “Very humorous when they needed to be. He said, ‘First of all, you can’t put the blocks under the Vanguard name.’ He said, ‘Put your family name on there.’ So we did that.”
Interest increased, and by 1972, the blocks were on 34 boats in the Munich Olympics. In 1984 and 1992, Harken served as the official equipment supplier at the Olympics.
Olaf and Peter were inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2014.
Pewaukee boy
Olaf, a longtime Pewaukee resident, once served as the commodore for the Pewaukee Yacht Club.
“He’s a pillar of the sailing community and to have him be here in Pewaukee is very special,” said Allen, the current commodore at Pewaukee. “We are fortunate this is where he landed.”
Two days before he died the yacht club honored Olaf, to an extended standing ovation, with the Hanke Lifetime Achievement Award. After the awards, he was seen taking a turn on the dance floor with a smile on his face and an arm around his daughter and his wife.
Melges’ boat-building business was one of Harken’s first customers.
“They’ve made it so much more pleasant for us all to enjoy sailing,” Melges said. “Their equipment made trimming the sails so much easier. Because of that the boats went faster.”
Charlotte Peterson worked at Harken for 16 years. Her desk sat outside Olaf’s office. In a male-dominated industry, Peterson found a longtime friend in Olaf.
“I was 20-something, and he respected me,” Peterson said. “There was no, ‘Oh, you’re just a girl, oh, you’re just 20-something.’ He listened to what I had to say. We just developed this friendship. I learned a ton from him.”
Services
Visitation and a funeral service will be Saturday at Galilee Lutheran Church, Pewaukee. A celebration of life follows at Harken Manufacturing.
For overseas friends, another celebration of Harken’s life is planned for the annual METS show in Amsterdam in November.