You might be able to get 19 Koreans into a Mini; 25 Nepalese into a telephone booth and 400 East Europeans into a container, but how many teenagers can you get down below in a Contessa 32?

I locked into St Katharine Haven hard by Tower Bridge after banging about on the large steel buoy in the river outside. The occasion was my daughter, Emily’s, 16th birthday party and she came up to stay aboard my boat with her pals and ‘do’ London.

I packed this lot into the saloon and then locked myself in the foc’sle. Thing is you have to burrow head first into the forepeak then turn over to get your feet in the bag at the pointy end and your head up for air by the head.

A large crowd of enthusiastic Belgians tried to follow the girls onto the pontoon: they did not realise the dock area is out of bounds to those without a craft.

Sweeping up the cabin sole after the riot, I found three broken earrings; a pocketful of crushed sea salt crisps, and two hair slides.

After they had gone it was good to be solo once more and just sweep up dried East Coast mud.