The 15m-long vessel, which has an estimated value of £3.5m, capsized off the Guernsey coast in treacherous seas in the early hours of Sunday with the two-person crew having to be rescued by helicopter. The yacht had been flipped over by unexpectedly strong winds on Saturday, the first night of the transatlantic race, Transat Cafe L’Or, running from Le Havre to Martinique in the Caribbean, and had drifted upside down onto the shingle beach near Perelle. Efforts to salvage the yacht began before 7am, about two hours earlier than expected, with a high tide around 10am.
Phil Merrien, emergency coordinator from States Works, was part of the team helping on the beach.
‘It went really smoothly,’ he said. ‘With the help of two diggers, we lifted it to the low water mark, and then the tide was just lapping around it and we managed to get it afloat.’
The yacht was then towed out by a rib from Guernsey Ports to where a French boat, ‘Express’ which had come over especially from St Malo, was waiting in deeper water.
After attaching the tow ropes, it then pulled the unmanned and still upside down yacht on a 15-mile, five-hour trip around the north of the island to St Peter Port. The yacht arrived outside the harbour at 2pm.
By 2.45pm port crews and support staff from the racing team had attached crane straps ready to lift the vessel out of the water.
And by 3pm, with a round of applause from those involved and a crowd of about 20 people watching, the trimaran was back the right way up, with the loss of its mast and sails the only obvious sign of its ordeal.
With heavy 40mph plus winds due on Thursday night, the French crew took the decision to leave Guernsey immediately.
And by 5pm, with a temporary mast in place, the yacht was being guided out of the harbour by staff before going under tow for its return to France.
Acting Harbour Master James Way praised all those involved.
‘This has been a complex operation carried out safely and efficiently thanks to the skill and cooperation of everyone involved,’ he said. ‘From the initial Coastguard response through to the refloating and righting of the trimaran, the teamwork, professionalism and seamanship has been exemplary. I’m pleased that a potentially serious incident at sea has come to a positive conclusion.’
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.