Ok, so not long ago I thought I'd love to expand my RYA powerboating liscence and work my way into getting an RYA sailing licence. I've had a few lessons now, working up to my Level One certificate of competance, and this weekend I was involved in a little accident...

There were three of us in the boat, and the instructor was 50 feet away in a safety boat, and we were taking it in turns to be the Skipper (captain).
It was someone elses turn to Skipper the craft, and that left me and the other guy as crew, as crew we had to set the Jib Sail (the one in front) and shout feedback to the Skipper about the traffic in front as you can't see past the sails from the back.
I was shouting back theres a very large and scary ferry in front you best turn us around now, but he panicked...
I yelled "ABOUT TURN" which is a command that means turn the boat into the wind, but he just sat there flabbergasted, so I turned from where I was sitting to face forwards and braced myself by putting my foot on the decking in front of me, and we struck the ferry really hard lol, I remember the look on the ferrys passengers hahaha, they were precious!
Then the panicked skipper accidentaly turned with the wind to try and get round the back of the ferry as it went past, but he didn't turn hard enough. Turning into the wind made the boat speed up as well.
When we struck the boat the front of our boat was wrenched upward flicking one of the tyres hanging off the side of the ferry onto a bunch of passengers, the force of the impact sent flecks of paint and wood everywhere, and then our boat came to rest behind the ferry, still being blown by the wind.
I looked round after yelling to the poor guy that we should move out of the way of the second ferry following behind the first one, and saw our instructor zipping across the water toward the ferry. Apparently the Skipper of the ferry was a friend of his so he went to apologise.

No-one was hurt, just the other crewman were a little stunned, and there wasn't any real damage to either vessel, and we continued to have a pleasant afternoon of sailing after that, the Instructor assured us that this stuff happens, and even went on to explain that he was responsible for the dent in the side of the tug the 'Mayflower'. He said he was in a race at the time and he "could have swore it was longer than that" haha. Hes a great guy!

I am going to get my certificate before long and then I hope to pick up sailing as a hobby!