FOUR boats battled at the weekend to tug a stricken ship to safety off Jersey’s south coast in the biggest rescue operation of the year.

Two lifeboats and two tug boats were called out when the 50-metre ship, the Alva, which had 40 people on board, suffered a tangled propeller in rough seas off the Minquiers. The ten-hour operation began at 7.30 pm on Saturday, when the St Helier all-weather lifeboat, the Alexander Coutanche, was called out after the ship reported that it was struggling to make progress.

The States’ Duke of Normandy tug was also called out and both vessels were later joined by a rescue tug from Cherbourg. The St Peter Port lifeboat, the Spirit of Guernsey, joined the rescue at 1.45 am after the Duke of Normandy failed to get a towline aboard the vessel – a Swedish-registered sail training ship en route from Gosport in Portsmouth to Vigo in Spain.

The Alexander Coutanche then returned to the station to re-fuel as the operation continued. Jonathan Lee, spokesman for the RNLI St Helier, said: ‘This was a significant operation, particularly because of the number of vessels involved, the size of the ship in question and the number of people it had on board. ‘In terms of the number of the vessels involved, this was the biggest operation of the year. Fortunately during the course of the rescue the tide and wind turned and took the vessel north, away from the Minquiers.’

• Picture: The Alva, safe in St Peter Port harbour