ind your bows,’ said my mother in an increasingly high-pitched voice, ‘bit more to port…don’t clip the stern!’ I was 17 and we were in Tesco’s car park in our old Vauxhall estate doing ‘circuits and bumps’., she was less generous with the driver’s seat. In fact, it wasn’t until I took my Yachtmaster exam that she finally relented and handed over the tiller. ‘I hand-sanded and hand-painted those topsides,’ she warned, ‘don’t you dare scratch them.’ I did not. I mastered the art of parking with a two-foot air gap between the boat and the pontoon and hoped my younger sister would make it ashore before the examiner noticed. She did. I passed the exam and avoided a long stint in purgatory with the 120-grit. I didn’t pass my driving test first time, but that’s another story.
