Clockwise from left: Imp’s reaching speed was the biggest jump over the opposition. With a fuller, fairer stern shape than the consensus she offered markedly better performance over the offshore reaching courses of the SORC and Admiral’s Cup. It would again be offshore reaching speed that a few years later prompted the next generation of early lighter fractional One Ton designs like Diva and Passion II; the famous aluminium sub-structure that carried the rig and keel loads for Imp’s balsa-cored fibreglass shell (with a little carbon reinforcement thrown in). Rival designer Gary Mull was not impressed, calling the alloy frame concept ‘a load of baloney’. The final bill when Imp left Gary Carlin’s Florida yard was US$136,000 plus another $10,000 to Tim Stearns for the rig; at 143-foot the Holland-designed Juliet was one of the first modern superyachts. Built at the Royal Huisman shipyard, an early observation by Juliet’s owner to Wolter Huisman and Ron Holland was that ‘my dream is your nightmare’. But the nightmare would turn out just fine
of the Imp theme, took the top spot. Frac- tional rigs were just beginning to demon- strate superiority in these larger classes and the Swuzzlebubble design took full advan- tage of this latest opening in the IOR. And as if all of this success in the Ton
Cups and the Admiral’s Cup size ranges of 40 to 50ft wasn’t enough, Ron landed what was arguably the ultimate IOR commission of the time – a new Maxi for none other than Kialoa owner Jim Kilroy, one of the biggest and fastest grand prix racing yachts of the era owned by one of the great names of global ocean racing. Within a year Ron was designing a
Golden Apple, which led to a string of follow-up boats, both larger and smaller, was far more esoteric. Golden Apple was certainly fast and for the many competi- tors and watching pundits in Torbay this was clearly obvious even if the crew were rather accident prone – leading one race by some distance, the crew draped the spin- naker over the windward mark during the hoist. Apple had that sort of a series. She ended up seventh overall but the
world and, most importantly, the owners had seen enough. The heady mixture of speed and beauty, courtesy of those bright- work topsides, had spun their magic. Ron had arrived and so had a friendly design rivalry between Doug Peterson and Ron Holland that would blaze for nine ferocious years of IOR competition. From a design point of view their
philosophies were similar. Create yachts that excelled upwind in all weathers and were fast, if not tricky, running. Reaching performance was not prioritised. They both had a gift for spotting idiosyncrasies in the IOR that both reduced the rating while, at the same time, producing a faster hull form. A win, win scenario that would keep them at the absolute pinnacle of inter- national offshore racing for years to come. But as much as the similarities of their
respective designs kept them close – mid- ship sections, keels and rigs could almost be interchangeable – Ron developed
54 SEAHORSE
shallower bow sections without a sub- merged stem, and sterns that used a rudder below a short skeg rather than behind it. Other design trends were fast emerging
in these frenetic times and reaching perfor- mance was an area where big gains could be made under IOR. The trick was to find a way to do this without compromising upwind ability. Ron Holland pulled this off most
successfully in 1977 with Imp. A 40ft minimum-rating Admiral’s Cupper, Imp set the world on fire in that 1977 season and showed that with excellent design you could have your cake and eat it too under IOR. Imp topped the overall standings in both the SORC and Admiral’s Cup of that year. The days of the reaching machines that could also go upwind had arrived courtesy of a Ron Holland stern shape that would become one of the key signature shapes of the era. While Imp broke new ground in IOR
exploitation Ron’s follow-up designs in the Ton Cup classes and bigger boats continued to develop and with ever greater success. Regardless, the direct 1979 follow-up to Imp, was arguably an even more impressive boat but her record was sadly interrupted by a retirement in the year’s stormy Fastnet Race. But Ron would, once again, get top boat
in the Admiral’s Cup when in the 1981 event Swuzzlebubble, a further refinement
development sistership to Kialoa, to be named Condor. These two mighty 80- footers went on to match race each other while winning races and line honours all over the world and help to define a new era of Maxi yacht design. It was a heady period indeed for Ron
Holland and yet despite winning at every size across the IOR spectrum – particularly with the stunning-looking Swuzzlebubble – Ron attracted little interest in follow-up Admiral’s Cup boats in 1983 or ’85 when the offshore racing world began to turn to a new generation of young designers – who had only ever worked with IOR designs that were lighter and fractionally rigged as they came up through the ranks of the Half Ton and, yes, the Quarter Tonner class. To this generation the heavy masthead pointers of the past were no more than historical footnotes during their naval architecture studies. Such are the vagaries of fashion in this
world of racing yacht design. Just as actu- ally winning doesn’t count for everything, winning may no longer be simply enough. Frustrating though this undoubtedly
was for Ron Holland, superyacht bril- liance awaited him. And also the odd last laugh… In a world now dominated by lighter fractional IOR boats the five-year- old Regardless had her moment in the sun finishing fifth in the 1984 One Ton Cup in a fleet of 30 refined young pretenders… q
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