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Superyacht Industry Leader Wolter Huisman Will Be Missed.
by Jack Somer
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04/01/2005
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As Holland’s skies cleared from the smoke of war in spring of
1945, 13-year-old Wolter Huisman donned his heavy wooden shoes and went to work
beside his father building humble wooden boats in the family’s modest boatyard
in Ronduite. The lad soon realized that only quality and innovation would
distinguish their business. In 1954, he convinced his father that steel was the
future for sailboats. Five years later, he took over the boatyard. By 1964,
Huisman was building racer/cruisers and level-raters in aluminum.
In 1971, he moved the growing company to its current Vollenhove
site. His reputation spread as Huisman yachts won major international
competitions. But in the early ’80s, Huisman dared to leave racing and turned
his attention instead to building some of the world’s finest aluminum luxury
sailing yachts. His masterwork – the 90-meter, three-masted schooner
Athena – was launched just months before he died peacefully at home,
surrounded by family, after losing a hard-fought battle with cancer.
With no university education, Huisman became an innovator whose
technical instincts and Dutch conservatism taught him to measure the yachting
market’s mistakes before gearing up to produce his own new and improved sail
furlers, reel winches, SCADA systems and carbon fiber spars. He became a
legendary figure in the superyacht world, but never behaved as one. He was as
concerned for his employees as he was for his clients. Even as his influence
spread beyond Vollenhove into the global community, Huisman remained human and
vulnerable, with a demon inside that drove him to perfection.
In 1984, his company received the prestigious "Royal" designation from Queen
Beatrix of the Netherlands. A decade later, Huisman celebrated 50 years in
boatbuilding with a gala where he was made an Officer of the Order of
Orange-Nassau – one of his many lifetime awards. After the crowd performed a
Maori good-luck dance, they sang to the guest of honor. That song’s refrain is
the most fitting memorial for so beloved a man: "Long live Wolter
Huisman!"
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