12th April 2021. On this date we were supposed to move Mistress into another space. We also figured out that we needed to fill the tank up because we were using it all for the heater. Welcome to England! It was -2 degrees Celsius (approx 28 Fahrenheit) at night therefore being a necessity.

At noon we were supposed to move her. I was the first time that my dad was skippering a boat of her size but I wasn’t afraid. On the other hand, my mum was; she said that we were going to hit the boat so she took her baby (Millie the dog) and waited for us at the fuelling pontoon. Before she went, she untied us making us ready to refuel. We were fine at first as my dad had control of the boat but then we had to wait for another boat to refuel and that one took a mountain of time to refuel! The strong tide had started to push Mistress to the right where there was a beautiful powerboat. We tried to beat the tide but it was too powerful. It took us in the bow (front) of that boat whilst I was trying to push her away from the powerboat making me get caught up between the 2 yachts. We then got help from others so we could go to the pontoon and refuel. After that, we nearly hit another boat but with the help of people on the pontoon and the workers of the marina that didn’t happen. We parked in another space and that was that.

The incident looked worse from the outside than it actually was. The truth is that no one was hurt and there were only minor damages to the boats, however, my mum was traumatised when she saw what happened.