Bill Mattholie

Age: 28
Birthplace: Devon, England
Hometown: Wherever the job takes him, but his home country of choice would be Australia
Family: Girlfriend Emilie in Australia
Hobbies: Surfing

As the leading hand on the deck build for Ericsson’s two racing yachts, Bill Mattholie keeps four to five people busy with construction and assembly of the place where hands and feet do a great deal of hard work at sea.

“With a two-boat program there’s a bit of deja-vu,” he says with a laugh. But the best part of building boats is seeing the result as a “fully working, racing machine. Then all the hard work feels pretty good,” says Mattholie.

Young start in career

He started his career straight out of college, which he completed in Cornwall. He’s already had time to work on a Volvo Ocean Race campaign in 2001 and the Alinghi during the last America’s Cup.

He began in the composite shed and is considering going back to composites if he ever works for himself in other build projects. When Ericsson’s yachts are racing around the world, Mattholie will watch from Australia, his ideal home country because he can combine work with his love for surfing.

“In Europe you’re always around the Mediterranean, where there’s no surf. Since that’s what I like to do when I’m not building boats, it’s Australia for me.” As he checks in from abroad, he likes to see 3D-projections and live footage from the boats.

And where mobile communication is concerned, Mattholie can only guess what the future will bring: “I don’t know how it would work but maybe we’d just have a voice-controlled unit at our ears that would do everything,” he says.

Love and surf

Mattholie found love in Australia as well, ironically with a Swedish woman. That was very convenient early in the Ericsson Racing Team project. “She took a year out of her studies so I got to meet her family and see where she’s from and really experience Sweden.

The worst part now is that she’s gone back to Australia, so she calls me from Australian summer and I’m stuck here in the dark with no surf and no girlfriend!”