Belfast Lough's Game Changer is Only Northern Ireland IRC Boat at Cork Week

7th July 2022

Belfast Lough's Game Changer is competing in a competitive fifteen-strong Class 1 fleet Credit: Afloat

Cockle Island is a small club in the village of Groomsport on Belfast Lough and members there will be rooting for one of their own who is racing the only Northern entry in this year’s Cork Week, Shaun Douglas in his Beneteau 40.7 Game Changer. The bigger nearby Ballyholme Yacht Club will be following Douglas too for he is also a member there.

Had John Minnis’s Archambault 35 not sustained rig damage during Bangor Town Regatta forcing his withdrawal, there would have been another Northern boat.

Shaun’s crew includes John Conor, Hayley Simms, Colin and Deidre Coffey, Lucy Marten, Garth Maxwell, Reggie Harris and Michael Ennis, several of whom are Cork first-timers, and they are all looking forward to this big gathering. Shaun himself has competed in Cork Week many times, the last being about 15 years ago in a 1720 sportsboat when he won the Irish Nationals.

Game Changers’ last big event was Bangor Town Regatta in June where they were 3rd in Class 2 and they also won Royal Ulster’s Copeland Islands race in May. Last year Game Changer took top prize in the inaugural Royal Ulster to Strangford Lough Race.

Game Changer is on the way to Cork at the moment. Shaun says “We are really looking forward to taking part in the Royal Cork’s 300 celebrations and competing in a really competitive fifteen-strong Class 1 fleet”.

Published in Cork Week, Northern Ireland Waters

Published in Cork Week

Tagged under

Cork Week

About The Author

Betty Armstrong

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Betty Armstrong is Afloat and Yachting Life's Northern Ireland Correspondent. Betty grew up racing dinghies but now sails a more sedate Dehler 36 around County Down

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