“Carve your own course on the sea, or risk being lulled by the wind and coerced by the current.”
-Alfred J. Beckwith
If you have never commissioned or captained an enormous and beautiful yacht, you might not have heard of Vancouver’s Ron Holland.
You probably do remember Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society as the unconventional teacher who inspires his charges to seize the day! Ron Holland probably wouldn’t have stood atop a desk – he was a high school dropout – and carpe’d the old diem. He has, however, throughout his life, grabbed every opportunity that came his way and didn’t look back. And he steered his own course. Captain, my captain indeed!
Ron is a world-renowned designer of yachts. His story begins a half a world away (from Canada anyway) in New Zealand where as a child he was given a sailing dinghy by his father. If there’s a bug that makes you want to live with the ocean and design boats, Ron was bitten by it. By the time he was a teenager, Ron had become a much-welcomed fixture on many of New Zealand’s racing yachts. Think prodigy, not barnacle.
“I’ve been designing boats all my life starting in New Zealand, then going to San Francisco in ’69 and Ireland in ’73. I’ve followed invitations to design boats, building on commission,” says Ron.
I once worked on commission. Door-to-door vacuum sales sucked. In a “what have you done for me lately” industry like yacht building, Ron always hoped for triumph on the seas. It meant work.
“Your next job comes from the success of the last boat you did,” he says.
Ron credits New Zealand’s unique place on the world map for engendering a DIY attitude amongst much of the Kiwi population. It’s a “work with what you’ve got” outlook that found its way and fits snugly into Ron’s own seat-of-your-pants esthetic.
“Our geographical isolation played a very important part. When I lived there, everyone would build their own boats. When I came to the States in ’69, they built production yachts like cars. You’d go into a showroom. We built our own things. That was an influence.”
The opportunity to do as he wanted presented itself to Ron in the early seventies. It didn’t have to knock twice. County Cork became home. Ron has joked that he went for the weekend and stayed for 40 years.
“If you were in Ireland in the ’70s and could design boats that could beat the English, you were a hero,” he says.
Ron did just that, remaining in the southwest of Ireland for nearly half a century creating masterpieces including his Shamrock series of racing yachts and winning races throughout Europe. The jewel of the fleet, though, just may be the Mirabella V, launched in 2003, designed and built by Ron for the former owner of the Avis car rental company. He bought it, by the way. It’s the largest single-masted yacht in the world. The height of the mast prevents it from getting under any bridge in the world. Yes, that was by design.
Ron is travelling the world again promoting his book All The Oceans (nearly 400 pages and 200-plus photographs), and he’s eager to point out that amongst all the glamour and world travelling, and self-deprecating in it, the over-arching theme is a simple lesson’s wisdom: just do it.
For the record, Nike didn’t become the swooshed juggernaut it is until 1971. Ron was “just doing it” in the fifties. He insists that life has a way of working out, and it’s an outlook he tries to impart to anyone who’ll listen. In fact, the impetus for the book came from the students in his ship builders master class and their incredulity as to how a high school failure with no formal training could do what he has done and teach them how to do it, too.
As for the toll a world book tour takes, Ron is as casual as a rock star on the deck of, say, a yacht.
“Well, it’s what I’ve done all my life anyway, just travelling around,” he says.
Don’t forget the designing of all those yachts for crown princes, heads of state, and the run-of-the-mill rich and famous.
Ron has slowed a little bit, but still makes a considerable wake. Just into his seventies, he designs yachts now and again for friends. And speaking of friends, Ron still has more promotion to do in Europe, where he has made more than a few acquaintances over the years. Many yachts have been christened and champagne imbibed, but it’s time now for his book to be toasted.
Ron’s life story may just be a war on complacency and inactivity. Nancy Reagan be damned, Ron’s slogan ought to be “Just Say Yes!”
“If you want to know any more secrets, you’ll have to read the book,” laughs Ron.
He’s the type of guy who will never have to say, “that ship has sailed” because if it did, Ron was on it.
To find a local retailer that carries All The Oceans, visit alltheoceansbook.com or buy it online at amazon.ca.
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