RTÉ News reports that a 94-year-old man has died in what the PSNI are calling a “tragic growing incident” after his boat capsized in Belfast Lough in Northern Ireland on Sunday (28 August).

Jim Allen, a long-standing member of East Belfast Yacht Club, had been with a friend on a yacht that launched from the club on Sunday afternoon when he made a Mayday call around 3pm reporting that the vessel was taking on water.

It’s understood that the yacht quickly capsized about 2.4km off Carrickfergus, near Greenland. Allen’s friend, a man in his 70s, survived the incident and was treated by emergency services at the scene.

RTÉ News has more on the story HERE.

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.

As a Club we have always been proud of our working class roots and welcome prospective new members who wish to pursue their dreams of building from scratch or renovating existing hulls, be they Ferro, Wood, Steel or GRP. We are now more associated with 'traditional' type boats and building rather than the modern GRP types, although we have members also experienced in this type of construction.

East Belfast Yacht Club, Sydenham By-Pass, Belfast, Co. Down BT3 9HR. Tel: 028 90 812658/077 597 81281

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