Scotland to Irelands 1: Broken engine

Yen Nguyen

Lovely sail to begin with as we headed southwards to Islay. Had a bit of time with the spinnaker before the wind dropped and we decided to turn on the engine. A short while in, the engine stopped and there ensued a few hours of skipper trying to fix it to no avail and we eventually decided to sail on through the night, skipping Islay and other ports in favour of a large well-connected port on the mainland with marine engineers available. Had dead moments of no wind where we seriously reconsidered other ports but thankfully it became mostly 20+ knots of wind, beating the whole way and making me feel slightly terrible!