Don't get caught on a reef at high tide.

[pillum]

Tricky tides in the Channel Islands, but no excuse for this.

"Two 'untrained' sailors who bought their yacht on eBay smashed their boat onto rocks after getting lost just 400 yards into what was believed to be one of their first voyages.

The hapless pair went out in their £3,000 24ft vessel but were soon left teetering on a reef near the entrance to St Peter Port harbour in Guernsey.

These unnamed sailors had 'little or no knowledge' of the area or sailing and were attempting to move the yacht from one marina to another - only 700 metres away - when they ran it aground in the dark.

Unaware of the rocks until their pale blue boat Ardel crashed into them, they were forced into a Mayday emergency call to the coastguard and a lifeboat was sent to rescue them."

Read more: Two ¿untrained¿ sailors get lost and smash yacht bought on eBay for £3,000 into rocks (they only had to move it 700 metres) | Mail Online

[David_Old_Jersey]

Typical Daily Heil style "reporting" a mix of judgements and snidiness.....and filling in gaps to create the story they want to print .

Another version here:-

Yacht runs aground – two rescued « This Is Guernsey



The boat has now been recovered - some local TV footage (2 mins) here, not of the grounding but of the area / the boat high and dry (and then ashore):-

Two rescued after yacht is stranded on reef - Guernsey News from ITV Channel Television - channelonline.tv

According to the report the owner was a specialist in Aircraft Navigation . But to be fair, locally not the easiest place to navigate - apart from the tidal range, the tidal runs (that vary according to the state of the tide) can easily suck you into places you didn't intend to be, if not paying full attention, lose some oomph (sail or motor) or simply lose your bearings - especially if navigating tightly (which if hopping between marinas for 700 metres they would likely be doing).....sometimes simply following a chartplotter (or a paper chart!) does not work alone - a bit of "what if searoom" is also nice. Well, at least around these parts .

FWIW, my guess is that for most folks around here this "event" will be met by a shrug of the shoulders, a few smirks (and a silent prayer that next time it won't be them getting caught out ) and then quickly filed in the folder marked: "stuff happens". Others may view things differently - especially the "Something must be done brigade" .

[Ram]

Why move in the dark -if only 700 meters- this was the first mistake-

[nigel1]

Main thuing is that everyone walked away (or swam)

[Eric50]

They have been very lucky, considerung that they could have sailed and failed in much more dangerous areas than this one, locally...

The boat seems not too badly damaged, they are all safe, it is a good ending.

And it is not the first, neither the last time that this is happening in the channel islands, for sure.

[Wotname]

Over in West Oz it was reported that the well known yachting identity and published writer from Jersey was involved in a shipwreck but the truth appears to be found on CF

[ozskipper]

Now where are all those people who think people shouldn't get professional training before setting out?

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Over in West Oz it was reported that the well known yachting identity and published writer from Jersey was involved in a shipwreck but the truth appears to be found on CF

The man sounds like a complete idiot

Originally Posted by ozskipper

Now where are all those people who think people shouldn't get professional training before setting out?

Still here .............and still subscribing to the notion that simply giving money to strangers doesn't cure stupidity, indeed it's usually a symptom .

[captain58sailin]

Training and common sense are not interchangeable. As it was pointed out, one of the crew was an aircraft navigator, so indeed did have training. As pointed out earlier, why move in the dark if you don't need to, and you certainly don't need to be a rocket scientist to read a tide book and know when would be the best time to move the vessel.

[Starbuck]

To be fair to the airplane navigator, he isn't often called upon to consider solid objects in his flight path.

[captain58sailin]

Except for mountains.

[Danosimp3]

We've all done stupid stuff. The idiots do the same stupid things again. I once heard there are only two kinds of sailors those who have run aground and liars (or at least those that will). I am firmly in the DOJ camp when it comes to "professional training." But to each their own

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by ozskipper

Now where are all those people who think people shouldn't get professional training before setting out?

Thousands of professionally trained people around the world kill themselves and others every week on the roads........**it happens...

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by IslandHopper

Thousands of professionally trained people around the world kill themselves and others every week on the roads........**it happens...

Yes, but this pair of numpties live on a island 5 miles across. You would have thought they would have noticed the rocks all around the coast occasionally. Still should keep the shipwrights gainfully employed for a while.

Pete

[perchance]

It must be a tough little boat if it took any amount of pounding in the surf and survived to fight another day.