Bill Bollard
My father, Bill Bollard was born in Balmain Hospital, Drummoyne. From an early age he developed a keen interest in boats. He built his first boat aged about 14 years, it was a snub nosed small rowing boat, built out of packing case timber that his stepfather had bought home from work. As the timber was only about 1 metre long he needed to join it in the middle. It was successful for a few until he and a mate tried to lift it half full of water and it broke in half.
There is a biography of Bill in the book Boating Legends of Sydney Harbour. I've included the relevant chapter here.
The Sydney catamaran ferries which replaced the hydrofoils in the late eighties (and which are still in constant operation more than 30 years later) were one of the design projects my father worked on. This is his account of the work.
Sailing
From his early teenage years, he was always interested in sailing, he joined Abbottsford Club and sailing forward hand in 12 footers. He soon started building and sailing his own boats. He designed and built seventeen 12 foot skiffs for himself over the years and went on to represent Australia in 11 Inter-dominion series in Auckland, Sydney and Brisbane.
In 1972 he finished 8th in the Australian Contender class Championship and went on to represent Australia in a World series in Auckland, New Zealand. Unfortunately, as he could not afford to freight his boat over, he leased one locally and it was not as good as his own boat.
Dad was well known on the Sydney sailing scene and over the years he was a valued member of Drummoyne, Balmain, Gosford, Saratoga and several other clubs.
His skiffs, most frequently named "Venom" were a familiar sight on Sydney Harbour.
He would often build a new skiff during the winter months and sell his old boat. Many of his skiffs were experimental and there would always be an interested crowd wanting to see the new features during the first few races of the season.
His experiments weren't always successful and sometimes his old boats would be better than the new one and we'd find ourselves competing against it. He was always happy when one of his boats won though, no matter who was sailing them.
I can remember one year when the first five places in the NSW state titles were all his old boats.
A Designer of Note
Although he started off as a shipwright, dad always wanted to be a boat designer. He worked for a lot of places including the Adelaide Steamship Company, Brown Brothers, Build-a-Boat, Eken & Doherty and Alan Payne. He also formed his own company W Bollard & Partners and built up a collection of plans. He also became a excellent model-maker and has several of his half-models on the wall of the New York Yacht club, among other places.
In 1983, when Australia made their winning bid for the America's cup, we sent three contenders. The Sydney contender, "Advance" was one that dad worked on. This is a photo of it under construction at James Hardie at Balmain. This is the Advance story.
The Capricorn
The Capricorn was Bill's Retirement boat built entirely by my father in my sister's shed. It was a work of art with steamed cedar planking.
