Explore Sailing Voyages in Jersey 🇯🇪

We set off well though I was nervous as a new skipper and unfamiliar crew, I wasn’t entirely sure which line was which. We had a good F4/5 wind from SW so beating. However we had a tide initially W to E 2kt so had to take a bearing of 110 to ferry glide. Started with a reef. The wind dropped after an hour so we decided to shake the reef out. Unfortunately we mistook a reef line for the Genoa halyard and half the Jenny ended up in the water. Which was a good learning point. Then Stuart became seasick and not able to help. However we still had a crew of two. So we were sailing well and had made good progress to the west coast of Jersey when we noted what appeared to be a fishing boat but turned out to be a trawler. We made as good a detour as we could. As we neared Corbiere we weren’t making much progress so we turned on the engine but it wasn’t running well, quite a judder and little thrust. We tested this a couple of times, attempting to reverse, go into wind without success. So in the end abandoned this and continued under sail. We discussed what to do and took advice from friends, and contacted Jersey coastguard to advise them of our difficulty. We felt we could continue to sail and did, they would monitor our progress. After about an hour, the wind disappeared and the tide picked up and we started to drift so we updated the Jersey Coast Guard who advised they would attend. However they were going to take time. In the interim another boat Atlantic Isle arrived on the scene and discussed the situation with us. Initially they advised they couldn’t help us as they had passengers, but they would stay with us to see if we could maintain a southerly bearing as Corbieres rocks were to the east and the tide was pushing strongly 2kt south east. They stayed with us for about 20 minutes, and eventually decided they would tow us. Stephen made a great cradle for the tow, and I learnt more about helming under tow. After about 40 minutes under tow the coast guard arrived and took over. They took us under tow to the harbour, though we had to coast for 20 minutes waiting for a very large vessel to leave port. We were towed alongside to to a berth past the St Helier Yacht club which was a bit embarrassing but everyone was very kind. Amazingly, one of the crew John is a free diver going down to 15m, and the following morning he was able to take large amounts of fishing line off the prop, so we were able to race back.