Sailing into a Greek harbour on one of our charters (quite a while ago, now) we were passed in the channel by a mega-yacht doing about 25 knots through lots of sailing traffic.

After he had overtaken, looking behind us, I saw a curling wall of water about 10 feet high bearing down on our little 25-footer. We held on tightly as the wave buried us in foam, gushing down the hatchway, soaking our bedding and clothes. So tightly in fact that my wrist-watch strap broke and the watch was being washed towards the scuppers but I was able to grab it. Fortunately we were able to ride out the rest of the turbulence and washed our clothes and dried everything in the hot Greek sun that same afternoon.

"The great ship sails on with no thought of what its wake is doing to others." I can relate to that saying...