David Boykett

David Hebbert Boykett OAM (19 August 1934 – 10 February 2016) was an Australian representative rower and rowing coach. He was a six-time national champion, won a bronze medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics and competed at the 1964 Summer Olympics and at the 1962 and 1966 World Rowing Championships.

Boykett was selected in Victorian state representative men's senior eights contesting the King's Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships on four consecutive occasions from 1956 to 1959 and then further in 1961, 1964 and 1966. Six of those crews won the King's Cup, with Boykett at stroke in 1961 and 1966. For the inaugural 1962 World Rowing Championships in Lucerne, some minor changes were made in the men's eight, but it remained an all Victorian crew built around that years's King's Cup victors. In Lucerne, Boykett rowed in the three seat of the men's eight to a fifth placing.

For the 1964 Tokyo Olympics the winning Victorian King's Cup eight was again selected in toto. They took a new Sargent & Burton eight to the Olympics but quickly saw that its design and technology were way behind the European-built Donoratico and Stampfli shells being used by the other nations. With Boykett in the two seat, they raced in a borrowed Donoratico eight for the B final and rowed to an overall eighth place in the Olympic regatta.

Teaching, coaching and accolades Boykett was a PE teacher and was on staff at his alma mater Scotch College, Melbourne for 34 years from 1963.

Boykett's first coaching roles were with Victorian men's eights contesting the King's Cup. He coached the 1969 and 1970 crews to victory. In 1970 he took the Australian men's eight to the World Championships where they finished fifth. He coached Scotch College first VIIIs from 1979 to 1982.

He was FISA qualified umpire from 1960 to 1978 and officiated as an Australian and Victorian umpire for over 40 years up till 2002. He was a life member of Mercantile Rowing Club and of Rowing Victoria.

In 2010 he was inducted as a member of the Rowing Victoria Hall of Fame. In 2014 he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for his service to the sport of rowing, including coaching, administration and fundraising.