Stepping aboard yachtswoman Isabel Hood’s classic wooden 48ft cutter, Glance, at Quoile Yacht Club, Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland I’m a little nervous: Glance is a yacht with a robust reputation: during an accidental gybe her boom killed three sheep on nearby Green Island many years ago! Though the story may have been embellished down the years, it illustrates the proximity of land and sea in this marine nature reserve: one of only three in the UK.
 
Isabel, a university lecturer in environmental studies, is not the sort of sailor to have a blood-stained boom, in fact she is concerned the turbine blades – installed in The Narrows in 2008 – which turn at 20 mph will not ‘shred’ seals or dolphins. She  will be watching with interest the tests designed to make sure there is no detrimental impact on wildlife which are
promised by operators Seagen over the next four years.
 
Aboard the William Luke-designed classic built on the Hamble in 1894 she showed me the delights of Strangford Lough revealed in the latest issue of Yachting Monthly.