Royal Ulster Yacht Club Buys Goblet Found in Australia

9th February 2020

The Goblet inscribed Royal Ulster Yacht Club is on back on Belfast Lough

Although the mystery of how a Goblet inscribed Royal Ulster Yacht Club, dated 1869 and awarded to a Mr Foster Connor, ended up in Melbourne (Read Afloat's earlier report here) has not been resolved, the trophy has been bought by the club and is now in a glass cabinet in the Gloucester Room.

Mr Connor was a wealthy Belfast linen merchant with a home called Seacourt on Wilson’s Point in Bangor overlooking the Lough. He was Rear Commodore of RUYC in 1884 and owned the Amba. It would appear that he gave his name to some buildings in Bangor – Connor House School and the Connor Wing of the local hospital.

Given the significance of the date, this is likely to be the oldest cup in existence bearing the Club’s Royal name. Its size may disappoint as cups awarded for club races in those days were mainly “keepers” rather than perpetual challenge cups!

Published in Northern Ireland Waters

Tagged under

Royal Ulster Yacht Club

About The Author

Betty Armstrong

Email The Author

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

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.