It could be construed as an encouraging sign that half of the twelve-boat entry for the inaugural Royal Ulster Yacht Club on Belfast Lough to Strangford Lough Race was from that destination. Boats from the local fleet which would have been expected to enter were Sigma 33s, not yet launched due to the inclement spring weather.
Winner of both classes were visitors with the IRC fleet top prize going to Shaun Douglas's Beneteau 40.7 Game Changer from Cockle Island Boat Club at Groomsport on the North Down coast, in a corrected time of 3hrs 51mins ahead of Michael Eames' Sun Fast 3200 All or Nothing from Strangford Lough YC. And All or Nothing featured again, winning the NHC Unrestricted fleet in a corrected time of 3hrs 47mins in the NHC fleet ahead of Jay Colville's First 40 Forty Licks from Strangford Lough YC.
An interesting entry was the MGRS Juno which Myles Lindsay of Royal Ulster raced in Belfast Lough in the 90s. She languished in Arklow for some years and is now racing again in the North thanks to Terence O'Neill of Portaferry SC. She turned in a very respectable 4th place in the NHC fleet.
The course was from Bangor south along the Ards Peninsula coast to the finish on an imaginary East/West line at the Bar Pladdy South Cardinal buoy in the entrance to Strangford Sound.
The weather played its part in this race with a forecast of 10 knots early on and then an increase to 18 knots later which meant that with a Covid Restriction of 80% crew limit the two-sail fetch became a procession.
John Harrington in the IMX38, Excession was enthusiastic about the race even though as he said, they "didn't make a particularly good show of it competitively". He said " The sailing committee and the battery teams laid on a fantastic event for us. It was great to see so many visiting boats come for this new challenge. And the customary warm welcome in Portaferry brought back memories of events of old and an indication of a great summer of sailing ahead of us. We eagerly await the next race in the series".
