An heroic mother has relived pulling three families from the sea after their rental boat sank in the Great Sound.

Nicola Stegmann and husband Werner were out on their own boat with family last night, when they spotted the listing boat and saw terrified children, most aged under 6, and their parents struggling in the water.

She said: “Instinct just took over and we knew we just had to help these people.

“To know that they were all safe is a huge relief. It was frightening and it could have gone terribly wrong.”

She added: “It was a pretty shocking experience. I feel quite traumatised. It was not quite something I planned to do on a Sunday evening.”

Ms Stegmann, from Devonshire, was out boating with her husband, her daughter and goddaughter, both 14, and her eight-year-old son when they spotted the sinking boat east of the Artemis base on Morgan’s Point.

She added: “We’d just gone out for an evening and we’d not been out very long when we noticed a pontoon boat on its side and simultaneously all these heads and jackets bobbing in the water.

“We navigated closer to them and that’s when my husband told me to call 911.”

Ms Stegmann had the operator on the phone but had to put the phone down to help haul the people on board.

She said: “It seemed like so many people. There were three families from New York and a total of seven children.”

She said the majority of the children were under six, some with life jackets and some without, and they were calling out for help.

“We started to pull all these people on board. The mums were completely panicked. It was frightening.”

Ms Stegmann said another thirteen people on their 30ft boat proved a challenge, so some of the rescued children clung to the tube raft attached to the back of their boat.

She added: “The kids sat on that as they were tired from swimming.”

They also threw them life jackets and noodles and Ms Stegmann added that “it took a good 20 minutes for the children to calm down”.

She added: “It went down really quite quickly. We stuck around for another hour rescuing all the stuff that was floating.”

Ms Stegmann said marine police arrived on the scene quickly and another three boats also came to their aid.

She said the marine police were “wonderful” and that Harbour Radio had also kept them informed about other boats coming to help and reassured them that they were not on their own.

Ms Stegmann said the families later told them that the boat had just started taking on water and was listing heavily to one side.

She added: “They did tell us there was no VHF radio on-board. They couldn’t find it.”

She said the families had told her that they had tried to call Harbour Radio but the call got disconnected.

A Bermuda Maritime Operations Centre spokesman said they were contacted by police at 5.48pm and told that connection had been lost with a 911 caller on board a sinking rental boat in the Great Sound.

He added that marine police were tasked to assist and helped take the families to the Waterlot Inn in Southampton.

He said that there were no reported injuries.

A police spokesman thanked the family for their help.

“The police would like to thank the persons on board the vessel that assisted with the rescue — their swift actions went a long way in averting a tragedy.”

He added that inquiries into the incident were under way.

The BMOC spokesman added that the partially submerged boat is half way between Grace Island and Morgan’s Point at latitude 32-16.368N and longitude 064-50.468W.

He said: “Mariners are advised to keep a sharp lookout and to proceed with caution.”