Opposite: ‘almost there, chaps’. Mid-gybe on the Holland-designed Admiral’s Cupper Midnight Sun as she does the masthead war dance down the Solent during the 1979 Admiral’s Cup. San Francisco sailing legend Skip Allan (top) drives Holland’s most famous design, Imp, upwind during her second Admiral’s Cup appearance in 1979. Ron Holland steers Eygthene (left) to victory in the 1973 Quarter Ton Cup – he would spend the months that followed living aboard the 24-footer as he waited in vain for the orders to arrive. Right: a yacht and stories so good they wrote a (cracking) book about her. A recommended read for any aficionado of ocean racing


available for Doug was via Ron Holland… And so on a wintry day in November the phone rang in the harbour master’s office of Moody’s Marina on the UK south coast. Ron was duly summoned from his boat and as a result of a convincing sales pitch from Ron, to say basically ‘anything he can do, I can do better’, Coveney invited Ron over to Cork in southern Ireland. And the rest, as they say, is history.


It may not have played out so well for


Ron but for the alchemy of a fine design, a beautiful and striking build in varnished timber and a great,well-organised owner. The 1974 One Ton Cup, held in Torbay


on the south coast of England, was a key regatta in the evolution of the Inter - national Offshore Rule (IOR). It also cemented the design reputations of both Ron Holland and Doug Peterson.


From Doug’s point of view it was


straightforward. His design, Gumboots, for Jeremy Rogers, went on to win the event – in a far from straightforward manner, but a worthy outcome for a designer who a year earlier at the 1973 One Ton Worlds had seen certain victory given away after a navigational error led to rounding a mark the wrong way… The recognition for Ron’s varnished 


SEAHORSE 53


J0NATHAN EASTLAND


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