Ron Holland
Ron Holland (born 1947 in Auckland, New Zealand)[1] is a yacht designer, who came to prominence in the 1970s with his successful racing designs, and is now best known for his superyachts such as Mirabella V and Ethereal. He is based in Kinsale, Ireland.
Background
Holland started competitive sailing at the age of eight and was apprenticed as a boatbuilder in Auckland, where he built his first design, the 26' sloop White Rabbit in 1966.[1]
In the USA
While working in Florida, he designed the 24' Eygthene, which won the 1973 Quarter Ton Cup. (The name of the boat was a pun on the New Zealand pronunciation of the word 'eighteen': quarter-ton yachts are rated at 18-feet under the IOR rating rule). The success of Eygthene led to a commission to design a One-ton class yacht for Irish businessman Hugh Coveney. Golden Apple enabled Holland to set up as independent designer, and he relocated to County Cork in Ireland.
In the Republic of Ireland
Golden Shamrock, his 30' design in the Half-ton Class, went into production in Cork. One of these boats, Silver Shamrock, built by South Coast Boatyard and steered by Harold Cudmore won the 1976 Half-ton Cup in Trieste, Italy[2].
This was followed by 'Silver Shamrcok III' in 1977 the year of Queen Elizabeth's Jubilee. The boat should have won the Half Ton Cup, but lost her mast in the last race. The production version of Silver Shamock III was called the Shamrock Silver Jubilee or Nicholson 30.
Meanwhile Holland's Nicholson 33 design, for the English boatbuilder Camper & Nicholson, had begun production and one of these, Golden Delicious, won the 1975 Fastnet Race. Other remarkable boat designs include 'Big Apple', 'Regardless', 'Golden Apple of the Sun' and ' Silver Apple of the Moon'. Further commissions followed, including a new Morning Cloud for the former British Prime Minister Edward Heath. Holland's designs featured prominently in the 1977 and 1979 Admiral's Cup series of races in Cowes.
His 40-footer Imp won the 1977 Fastnet Race. This lead to commissions for the 80-foot Maxi Class yachts Kialoa and Condor and for a series of designs for Finnish yachtbuilder Nautor's series of Swan yachts between 1979 and 1990. A Holland 30, Screw Loose, won the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1979.
Condor, the Maxi Class yacht built in 1981, still sails as a passenger boat in Australia's Whitsunday Islands.
'NCB Ireland' was the Irish entry in the Volvo Ocean Race. Although built and launched with great fanfare, she did not perform as well as expected or as well as the more adventurous designs from the southern hemisphere sporting a Mizzen rig.
The 103-foot Whirlwind, launched in 1986, was Holland's largest design to date and one of the first of a new breed of superyacht - large yachts which used new technologies to provide strong sailing performance without requiring a large crew[3].
The 247-foot Mirabella V, launched in 2003, was not only Holland's largest design, but also the largest ever single-masted sailing yacht.
References
External links
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