Forbes won an Olympic gold medal in the Star Class at Munich 1972 alongside John Anderson OAM.

He represented Australia at three Olympic Games – 1968 Mexico City, 1972 Munich, and 1976 Montreal, and was a member of two America’s Cup challenges.

He was an Olympic gold medalist in 1972 when there was no coaching and very limited support, he took on the world’s best and got the job done.”[2] Forbes attended Newington College from 1943 to 1949.

In 1975, Forbes was part of the winning Soling team in the North American Championship and that same year, won the pre-Olympic Regatta at Kingston.

Forbes business career was spent building the soft drink company Shelley Ecks, which developed many modern in-house technologies and was eventually sold to Coca-Cola.