The Confessional

Own up to your sins...

During the 1980s I was a fresh faced teenager, desperate for sea miles. A friend of my father owned a Nicholson 32 in Southampton and made regular trips to Guernsey, where he visited a friend who imported fine wines, and I went with him.

On our return journey, the skipper opened a bottle and retired early to his bunk. Being the new boy, I had the graveyard watch. A couple of hours out of St Peter Port, the wind was light and it was a black, starless night. Everything was silent, apart from the lapping water and a snoring skipper down below. I sat back and scanned the blackness for shipping. BA-BOOM! It was the loudest noise I had ever heard. I jumped several inches into the air, my heart leaping into my mouth. I stumbled around the deck, not knowing what I was looking for, but convinced we had hit something. In a panic, I stuck my head down the hatch. The skipper, from the darkness of the cabin, turned over in his bunk and muttered, ‘Concorde!’ and resumed his snoring. I breathed again.