Fishermen later wanted something roomier than the Repco 30, so he built a Webber Cove 34. That hull was built using a mold the Navy had contracted with Webber Cove from which to build launches. At about this time, Glenn’s father Keith started working with him. In the mid 1970’s when he wanted his own design that incorporated the elements he thought would make a good work boat that was also fast, Glenn carved a half model and made drawings for a new hull. He took the model and drawings to Royal Lowell. Royal Lowell was one of boat building’s most noted designers. He was the son of Will Frost, the builder credited with designing the modern lobster boat, and with building the fastest early gasoline engine powered boats in the 1920’s. One of these was the Redwing. Frost’s later boats included many highly prized rumrunners during prohibition. After discussions with Royal about the design, Royal’s son Billy built the plug. That plug was finished, sanded smooth, and a mold made, at Webbers Cove. About 25 hulls were built in that mold before it was burned in a fire in 1978. Holland needed a new mold and talked to customers about what they thought might be changed in the new hull. Most said nothing, but one said to make it two feet longer. He again talked with Royal Lowell who said it was not only possible, but that it would also make it faster, and that, said Holland, “was the key” to going forward. He borrowed an unfinished 30' hull a customer had recently picked up and used that as model for a new mold. North End Marine made the new mold, adding 21" to the aft end of the 30'4" hull. Glenn had built a new building in Belfast and he started laying up hulls there in the new mold. Holland began lobster boat racing in 1980, about the time he bought the Margarite G., an Earnest Libby Jr. designed and built wooden lobster boat. Libby is also among the most highly regarded designer/builders of great and fast boats. He too has spent his life studying how boats go through the water and how water goes around boats. Glenn liked the wooden boat, but, he said, it took a month to get it ready to race. He raced the Margarite G. one year, 1981, before selling her. While Holland’s Red Baron evolved out of the Repco 30, it incorporated new ideas that were helping to make a faster boat using the relatively new fiberglass building material. The Repco 30 had a nine-foot beam and was six feet at the transom. His 30' boat had a 10-foot beam and was nine feet at the transom. Glenn said, “People say they know the exact boat he used as a mold for the Red Baron. But it was my design.” “In the distance it looks like an old wood Jonesporter”. said Holland. “But, in fact, it has more flare in the bow and it’s wider at the waterline”. Holland also designed a 38' in 1984 that he began discussions about with Royal. But Royal died within a week of those talks and the plan went on the back burner. He later made line drawings, with building stations, etc., and Billy Lowell built the plug based on Glenn’s drawings. The Red Baron was hull #11 out of the 32' mold. To date he has pulled a whopping 150 hulls from that original mold. The Red Baron was designed by himself and Royal. It was first powered by a 340HP, V8 Ford 460. Its first race was at Jonesport on the Fourth of July, 1981. It came in first and second in its class. The Red Baron has won 3/4 of the races it has run in and placed second in the rest. Holland says he has at least 100 trophies kicking around. With the Red Baron’s “track” record many might assume the name is a reference to the famous World War I German pilot. Not exactly. Red? His father wanted the boat they were building to be white with blue trim. But the gel company sent the wrong color, and rather than send it back, they went with red. The name is from the Peanuts cartoon character, a fairly indirect reference to the German pilot. But a more direct reference to an early boat of Holland’s the Snoopy. Over the years he added horsepower, culminating in a blower boosted 57.8 MPH run in 1999. The Baron was light by 1980’s standards, but not by today’s. Today she is heavy compared to the boats built specifically for racing using Kevlar and other new materials. Jamie Lowell said of Holland’s 32, “it is the most winning boat. The greatest testament to the boat is that it has stayed together so well, for so long. The boat won without a lot of the modern technologies now available. It is not only fast, but it can go comfortably through rough seas, it’s a good work boat.” Holland tried diesel for a few years but didn’t like it. He prefers the explosiveness of gas and the roar of the engine. He likes top class gas because it’s wide open: “Run with what you brung and hope you brung enough.” Glenn says he has always been a gear-head who always wanted to race. When his business was growing in the early 1980’s he decided to build a boat to race. He recalled his father saying he wanted nothing to do with building a boat to race. But, after things got going Glenn said his father got into it and “you’d think he invented it.” Glenn added more power to the Red Baron over the years, but, he says, “it was design that made the Baron run well”. He was shooting for 60 MPH. Along with Royal he wanted to know how fast a hull like that could go. Redesigning the engine configuration was originally done to get the heat of the engine away from his legs while running the boat. Rotating the engine 180 degrees so that the transmission faced aft produced a couple of side benefits. With the weight of the engine further aft, the bow was lifted and planed sooner. It also handled better coming off a plane. With the weight more forward, when slowing down and coming off a plane, the nose dipped. When it hit the water it sometimes darted to the side. If the bow was leaning to port in this situation, it would dart to starboard. With the weight further back, and the stern down, the boat is moving slower by the time the fore foot hits the water. Over the last 35 years building has not changed much, but the materials have. Lighter materials, knitted fabric, Kevlar, etc., have combined to steadily increase the quality of the lobster boats produced. Racing, however, has changed dramatically. Glenn recalled being a racing fan, of both auto racing and lobster boat racing, in the early 1960’s. At that time only Jonesport and Winter Harbor had lobster boat races. Now there are nine races, with many race classes, boats and spectators. This year a media company filmed the races for the first time and broadcast them on regional television. Their plan is to make a nationally televised program of the 2008 races, which may, in fact, mean an international broadcast. The Red Baron may go from the back of Glenn Holland’s 11th grade term paper, taking with it the boat’s roots in the Jonesport lobster boat, the Will Frost rumrunner and the Winterport drag racer, to television screens around the world.
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