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Displaying items by tag: Lucy Whitford

Hot on the heels of several stories in Afloat about women appointed as Club Commodores, East Antrim Boat Club has joined the ranks again for 2023 as Lucy Whitford has been given that position for the third time.

When she was made Commodore in 2020, Lucy was only the third lady in the Club's 70-year history to enjoy that position. The others were Lilian Stewart and Anne Morris. 

Time was when a woman wouldn’t have been considered for the position of Officer or even a General Committee member. Many have faced the ‘glass ceiling’ syndrome, but thankfully times and attitudes are changing, and it has at last been recognised that a woman can do the job as well as a man. It is thought too, that for the first time in over 70 years, EABC has an even split female/male on the General Committee.

Although Lucy is a regular sailor, and her daughter Zoe is a leading ILCA 6 sailor, Lucy comes from a motorsport background. She competed in motorsport from the age of 16, first auto testing and then rallying, surely a lot faster than anything she would be used to now. It was a family thing as both her parents competed, and her husband is also involved.

Lucy says she is looking forward to working with Vice Commodore Chris Dorman as well as the other Committee members, including the women at the top – Hon Secretary Alison Liddle, Hon Treasurer Melanie Morris (well known in the GP14 world), RYA Principal Debbie Hanna and Caroline Wilson Membership Secretary.

Looking ahead, East Antrim Boat Club will run its Christmas Regatta on 27th December, a Junior Coaching Clinic at Half Term (13th -15th February) next year, and new for 2023, a ‘Ladies that Launch’ campaign to get females participating in a fun race series on a regular basis.

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.