Watch: Seahorse Model Boat Club takes to the waves at South Lakes Craigavon
One of Northern Ireland’s bigger model boat clubs had another of their sailing days in Craigavon earlier this month
The Seahorse Model Boat Club is one of the more active groups for enthusiasts of the maritime past time.
Along with the North Down Model Boat Club in Bangor, they form a nucleus for many of the estimated several hundred people locally who follow the hobby.
There are smaller groups at the Belfast Waterworks and at Strangford Lough.
The Club meet regularly at South Lakes, that part of Craigavon’s Balancing Lakes next to the areas Leisure Centre and Council offices.
The boats they sail are a mixture of those which have been bought and those all or partially self-built.
It has upwards of 30 members, one of whom is Donacloney man Steve Traynor.
Matters connected to the sea have always been an interest for him:
“I used to enjoy power boating but now that I am in my seventies that is a bit much, so I thought I would like to get into the model boating and put my hand to building a boat or two and see how it works.”
While he had a lot of enthusiasm for the subject, he had little of the knowledge needed:
“There are so many things in building boats and some of the members here have been engineers and have had a life time of building boats.
As a learner I came along without any idea what motors to buy, how to connect the batteries and how dangerous it could be if you do not use the correct battery. But everyone was so generous with their expertise”
Steve admits that the Craigavon location does have one drawback:
“The Bangor club meet at Pickie Park. It is a smaller lake, and you can retrieve your boats if they start to sink. That makes it a great place for test out whether the boats you have built leak or not.
I can tell you there are a few of our that are down at the bottom of this lake unfortunately. Some have started to leak, and some got hit by another boat which had been going too fast.”
For Steve, the main thing he gets from being a member is a sense of camaraderie.
“We have a lot of fun at these meetings. It’s great being able to meet likeminded people and have a lot of fun as well as being proud of the boats you have built or bought,” he said.