Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy suffered 'horror movie' near death boat trip incident
Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy's romantic boat trip near Sardinia turned into a nightmare excursion that could've killed them both, the sportsman has shared.
The 2009 ordeal unfolded after Crouch, 38, hired a motorboat for the pair to soak up some sun and sip champagne. The weather soon began to turn as they put the anchor down by Porto Cervo and their safety was threatened as the boat wouldn't budge from its spot.
The footballer details the incident in his new autobiography, I, Robot: How to be a Footballer 2, extracts from which have been published by The Mirror.
Read more: Sir Patrick Stewart: Emergency heart op made me realise I am not immortal
He writes: “I tried to grab the anchor but it was snagged on something and when I tried to put the boat in reverse nothing happened and we started to panic.
“The wind was sending waves thumping against the hull, spinning us round on our accidental mooring, swinging towards a shoreline that on closer inspection seemed to be made entirely of large, jagged rocks.”
However, as the anchor was not moving from its fixed spot, Crouch used a corkscrew to try and hack through the rope.
He explained: "Soon, there were more holes in my fingers than the ropes. There was blood on the deck, panic in our throats.
“What had begun as a romantic gesture was turning into a horror movie and the rocks were getting closer and closer. But just as things were getting really desperate, the rope snapped and we roared away."
“I don’t know whether we’d have died or not if we’d crashed into the rocks but it certainly wouldn’t have done wonders for my good looks,” he wryly adds.
Crouch and Clancy, 33, went on to marry in 2011 and now share four children, Sophia, 8, Liberty, 4, Johnny, 21 months and four-month-old Jack.
Recently, Clancy stepped out in a glamorous semi-sheer gown for a charity event.