east belfast yacht club
London
East Belfast Yacht Club was founded by workers from the Belfast Shipyards in
1904, and has enjoyed both the high and the low years through its existence.
From the high points through the 1920s/30s/40s and '50s when the Club hosted
many sailing races and entertained the owners and masters of the massive J-Class
yachts down to the more plentiful and massively supported Belfast Lough one
designs through to the Flying Fifteens and Dragons and others of the various
periods. The Club was previously situated at the head of Belfast Lough near the
now defunct oil refinery on the South shore but has been based on the present
site in Sydenham Embayment between The Belfast City Airport and Victoria Park
since 1939. More recent activities have been more towards the Cruising side of
Yachting with boats being built and refurbished at our base at Sydenham
Embayment and used to cruise the Inland Loughs, the Irish Sea, The Med' and
indeed through Europe and across to the America's. We have become established as
the main non professional producer and knowledge base for boats built from
Ferro-cement in Ireland, and have had visitors from many countries in Europe who
wished to avail of our knowledge on the subject. A past Member and his good lady
were the first to introduce the method to Sydenham around 1970 and through a
system of trial and error and the study of other builders down through the years
we have had boats built by our members using just about every method known.
Current build numbers are somewhere in the 30s, some of which have been own
designs and some modifications of existing designs.
