Bill Holland, Master Boat Builder

Bill Holland loves wooden boats, and it shows.

The master boat builder couldn’t get enough of his favorite sailing vessels during the work week, so he designed the ceiling of his house to resemble the inside of an upside down boat hull. The board-and-batten home has 14-foot cathedral ceilings, anchored by a 60-foot-long center ridge beam, and sits alongside his boat shop on the Back Bay of Biloxi, Miss., in D’Iberville (pop. 7,608), named for the French explorer who charted this area in 1699.

Holland is a craftsman carrying on part of Mississippi’s heritage that’s been in place for more than 200 years—its maritime tradition. Out of Honduran mahogany, old-growth Florida cypress, and long-leaf yellow pine, Holland builds beautiful, sturdy wooden boats amongst centuries-old artifacts of the craftsmen who came before him. He points out large timbers wedged in the mud dating back to the 1850s—relics of an earlier shipyard.

Even archaeologists, he says, are surprised sometimes at still older findings.

“We’ve found (pieces of) French pottery, Indian pottery, coins, and hand-blown wine bottles,” Holland says.

His repertoire is vast, including commercial schooners, shrimp trawlers, and custom pleasure boats. He also enjoys restoring Biloxi’s old fishing boats.

Although he took classes in art and drafting, most of Holland’s education came from hanging around the boat yards in his youth. Old-timers didn’t seem to mind children watching them work—and that’s how most of them learned about boat building.

“It was mostly a hands-on experience of learning,” Holland says.

While a senior in high school, Holland attended school half-days and worked the other half in a foundry making cast bronze fittings for sailboats. After graduation, he worked as a boat carpenter and a production welder, jobs that helped him learn all the skills involved in building boats.

“Some of the boat builders could loft, some made the timbers and frames, some worked in the machine shop, some did electrical wiring. In my case, I’ve learned to do it all. I’ve built my own tanks for water and fuel, can blacksmith, and I manufacture my own (steel) bolts,” he says.

His skill is widely known and respected. One admirer is Tom Rankin, a folklorist and photographer who documented Holland’s craft while working with the Mississippi Arts Commission.

“From the very moment I met Bill Holland, I was impressed not only by his knowledge, but by his compulsion to talk wooden boats, build boats, repair boats, analyze boat construction, and generally relish in his sharing of maritime traditions and ways of building,” says Rankin, now director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University.

“While the need for traditional shrimp luggers has certainly diminished, Bill Holland has adapted by building exquisitely designed and crafted charter boats, recreational fishing boats, and high-end yachts, using the same techniques, design principals, and native woods,” Rankin continues. “Over the years he has trained many apprentices, shared his knowledge in workshops and public presentations, and assisted the local seafood industry museum in the interpretation of maritime life and culture. His knowledge, his work, and his boats are cultural treasures.”

In 1989, Holland built the Glen L. Swetman, a 65-foot&Mac226; double-masted schooner, a replica of an old wooden oyster schooner, for Biloxi’s Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum. It is one of two used for teaching, for charter trips, and for racing, and is seen most days flying along the Biloxi coastline. These schooners were a common sight in the late 1800s and early 1900s on the Mississippi Sound, before the introduction of marine engines.

Holland’s wife and two daughters share his passion for boats, helping him when they can. And his son-in-law, himself from a long line of charter boat people, now works with him part time—preserving his craft for at least one more generation.

Brenda Brown Finnegan writes from Ocean Springs, Miss.

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