‘We don’t want world war three’: yacht couple call for calm after Russian warning shots

British retirees Jane and Alan Kelvey say they do not want incident in Channel to stop them enjoying their sailing trip

A British woman on a yacht in the Channel near which a Russian warship fired warning shots has told how she does not want the incident to be blown out of proportion, saying: “We don’t want world war three to start because of this.”

Jane Kelvey, 69, and her husband, Alan, 70, were on their yacht, Bright Future, travelling from the south coast of England towards France on Tuesday when they came into close contact with the Admiral Grigorovich, a 409ft (125-metre) Russian frigate.

Jane said the warship fired four or five warning shots that sounded like “a whipcrack. You can tell when a gun’s been fired. You know that noise.”

Despite the incident, the retired couple from Buckinghamshire were determined to enjoy their two-month sailing trip, Jane said.

“We just don’t want it blown out of all proportion. We don’t want world war three to start because of this, because had it just been the five blasts on their horn, we wouldn’t have reported it, there would have been nothing to report. It was just the gunfire that was a little bit surprising,” she told the Guardian on Wednesday.

“I don’t want it to put any other British sailors off either. We all cross the Channel so often, it doesn’t need to be made into a big incident.”

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the Russian vessel fired warning shots to prevent a possible collision after making attempts to contact the 40ft (12-metre) British-flagged yacht, which was about 20 nautical miles south of the Isle of Wight, outside the UK’s territorial waters.

A translation of a statement posted on the Russian defence ministry’s Telegram channel said the yacht had been on a “dangerous approach” and the warning shots were fired after attempts were first made to attract the crew’s attention with signal flares and sound signals.

Jane said the Russian statement was untrue. Recounting her version of events, she said: “We were following our course from Lymington to Cherbourg at about five knots, we could see them in the distance. As we got closer, we could see it was a warship. We saw the Cyrillic lettering on the side and assumed it was a Russian warship.

“We were in no danger. We were not about to collide with them. They didn’t appear to be adrift, which is what they’re saying, that they had inability to manoeuvre.”

She said their yacht was using an automatic identification system (AIS), a maritime tracking system, so the Russian vessel would have known their location.

“They had plenty of opportunity to warn us off, if that’s what they wanted,” she said. “They didn’t fire flares, they didn’t get on the radio to us, they just gave five blasts from their horn to let us know they were there. We acknowledged by changing our course and then they did another five blasts, and then they fired the warning shots at which point we put our engine on and steered about 90 degrees to port to get right out of the way. But we weren’t in the way, we were not about to collide with them at all.”

She added that the only reason she was talking to the press was because of the untruthfulness of the Russian statement. “For us, until the shots were fired, it was just a nothing incident. We obeyed their five toots when we manoeuvred out of the way. But then when the gunshots happened, it was just completely unnecessary, and what they said was just not true. We weren’t adrift, we weren’t under motor, which they said we were. We were sailing and to be fair, we were the stand-on vessel, we actually had right of way, but we weren’t going to argue with a warship.”

The Russian statement said naval personnel had acted “in strict accordance” with international shipping regulations. But Jane said: “They [the Russians] obviously realised that what they did was going to cause some concerns so I think they just got their statement out early and they wanted to frame it in a way that shifted the blame to us.”

She said the couple contacted the UK Coastguard before a boat from HMS Tyne, another patrol vessel, was sent to the yacht to gather details and check they were safe.

On Wednesday, the Kelveys, who retired in 2023, were praised by their former colleagues for how they handled the incident. For 40 years they owned a local business that makes signs for the NHS and care homes, as well as celebrities and politicians – including Boris Johnson.

Daniel Murphy, the company’s production manager, said: “That’s typical of them not to be too stressed about it, they have a good way of looking at life, they brush off things, they have a stiff upper lip. They’re irreverent and funny.”

In 2022, Johnson visited the sign factory for a photo opportunity and Jane showed him how to make signs.

Murphy said: “This was the day before Russia invaded Ukraine and we got a heads up it might be coming, because suddenly Boris’s aides surrounded him and got him into a corridor where he took a call from [the then US president] Joe Biden.”

Murphy said of Alan: “He built this business from nothing – it started in his dad’s shed. They are self-made people so it’s great they are living their dream.”

Looking ahead to the rest of their trip, which will take in the coast of Brittany, Jane said: “It’s worth working hard to get to do this.”