Planting trees is very different to sailing at Ballyholme, but this month a team from the Belfast Lough club travelled to Glas Na Braden wood in the Belfast Hills behind Newtownabbey on the north shore of the Lough to take part in a Woodland Trust tree planting session.
The Woodland Trust is the UK’s largest woodland conservation charity and recently secured the future of 98 hectares in the Belfast Hills.
The team planted over 700 saplings to help carbon offset the RIB emissions during the Irish Youth Sailing Championships to be held at the club next week and as part of Sailors for the Sea Clean Regattas Award.
The Sailors for the Sea Powered by Oceana is the world’s only ocean conservation organization that engages, educates, and activates the sailing and boating community toward restoring ocean health.
The hilltop site, which has been named via public vote as Glas-na-Bradan Wood, will be transformed into a new native woodland and will be planted for the first time in the Woodland Trust’s history in Northern Ireland completely by the public.
Interestingly the name Glas na Braden does have a connection with the sea in that the historical translation of Glas-na-Bradan is The Salmon Stream.
