Big news…our boat was hit by another boat….

Big news…our boat was hit by another boat. It took a few days to be ready to post this.

On Friday morning while anchored here in Canada we awoke about 6ish to a thunderous bang and jolt in the boat’s movement. The anchor for a huge powerboat (much larger/heavier than us) nearby had dragged free and they hit our boat. They impacted at our bow and were now caught up against us, with their anchor chain wrapped on our rudder, and nobody was on board. There was about 15-20 knots of wind, significant current, and this harbor opens unprotected in that direction to a huge body of water, so there was significant chop. Their boat was so big that their hand rails were over the top of our solar panels and they were crashing down on us in the waves. We had to hold them off by pushing on them to prevent additional damage, and we couldn’t risk using our engine because we were sure their chain was wrapped under us right near the prop (and we were right).

It took a while, but we were able to get free using our bow thruster and some careful movement of their boat forward by pulling on their rails. We didn’t want to just release them because there were many more boats right behind us, but we had not figured out what to do about that yet. Fortunately just as we were figuring out how to free ourselves a local salvager arrived, boarded the boat as we freed it, and reanchored them nearby. It’s good that we got them off us quickly because winds built to 30+ knots and current to 4-5 knots within an hour later.

We hired a diver to determine damage underneath (who had quite a challenge in the current), and there is at least paint damage where their chain wrapped us, but we won’t know more until we haul the boat out on Tuesday and get a clear look underneath. Above the deck the damage appears limited right now, luckily we took the impact on the strongest point on the boat, the anchor roller. I do remain concerned about the fiberglass and steel at the bow, and more inspection is coming. The fiberglass on the other boat is smashed in badly where it hit us. We’re feeling pretty lucky there was not more severe damage or injury.

We are optimistic that we can still head south down the coast in a week, but will adjust as needed following the haulout. The event left us uneasy afterwards but in the moment we jumped into action with cool heads and solved the problem without any further damage or injury. We got back into the swing of things relatively quickly, and I’m thankful to have such a competent, capable, and adaptable family. I wish it had not happened, but the good side is that seeing how we worked together in a crisis has made me even more confident that we’ll be safe crossing oceans.