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Lancerbye · 29-10-2008, 01:20

A 100 years or so ago grew up fooling around with boats on lakes with my familly. Got to learn about sailing on Lake Ontario while trainning as an officer Cadet in Kingston Ontario. Later moved to the west coast of Canada. many boats later all power, back to sailing sort of.

**Ex-Calif** · 29-10-2008, 02:37

Hung out with the wrong crowd as a kid...

- 1969 Lovett Bay, Australia

**Hud3** · 29-10-2008, 04:53

My uncle took me sailing on his Comet when I was seven--showed me how the running backstays worked, and let me handle the jibsheets and the tiller. I guess that experience nested somewhere in my brain for years, because I felt a compulsion to buy a 16' Hobie Cat 26 years later. That boat really turned me on to sailing! What a blast for the whole family! And it was a great boat to learn on, too.

Connemara · 29-10-2008, 05:12

Joined the sailing club at University of British Columbia. Didn't get far, but learned which lines go to which sails and what the centreboard is for.

Occasionally sailed dinghies after that. Started spending time in Algonquin Park (Ontario) in my late 30s, where I had (again occasional) access to Laser IIs. Sailed them a few days a year.

Since a member of the next generation has gone off to New Zealand to live and raise the grandchildren, started thinking about how to have a pied-a-terre down under. Decided it made more sense to have a pied-a-l'eau -- a liveaboard, to translate roughly.

Thought it made sense to buy a keelboat and get used to sailing something that won't dump me in the water every second tack. Bought a 27-foot Mirage sloop and that's the tale....except that the market meltdown probably means buying the boat in New Zealand is postponed a while.

Connemara

mudbug · 29-10-2008, 05:40

Hi Y'all,

I grew up on lake with power boats and have always loved the water. But sailing is for sissies, I always thought.

In 1976, I was in my mid-twenties, single, and living/working in New Orleans. I had an apartment and was just making enough money as a salesman for a heavy equipment company to save a little and buy a weekend toy.

I thought a Harley would be fun, or maybe a ski boat. But, a friend kept touting a Hobie 16.

I thought sailboats were for people who could not handle horsepower and the whole thing looked. . . well . . . boring as hell.

But, my friend kept telling me that girls would love it and so would I.

So, one Friday night out at Augie's Delago, a huge three-story bar that used to be at West End on the New Orleans Lakefront by all the yacht clubs, I conducted a survey.

I approached every stunning woman in the club to seek her answer to a simply survey: for fun on a Saturday would you rather: 1) tour the countryside on a Harley; 2) go waterskiing and riding around in a power boat; or, 3) go hang out at the beach and go sailing on a Hobie Cat?

Geez! The Hobie Cat won by a landslide!

So, the following Monday, I called Sailboats South and talked to Colin Clark, the owner, and bought a Hobie 16 sight unseen. It would be ready Friday.

I went and picked it up Friday afternoon and Colin was to meet me at Northshore beach in Slidell the next morning for a lesson on rigging it and sailing it.

I brought the friend who promoted me buying the Hobie and we went to the beach bright and early.

Colin did not show up (turns out he got too plastered the night before). But several other Hobie owners showed up, showed me how to rig it, and thereafter my friend and I spent the day flipping the boat and doing everything wrong you can do, all while other Hobies zipped by and their crews lent advice on how to right the vessel and on how to sail.

I loved it, girls or no girls (turned out that girls did in fact love it, but that's a whole other story).

In the next year, my initial motives for selecting the Hobie were secondary at best. I became a certified sailing nut!

I even ran Colin's shop once while he went sailing in Belize, and I became part of the Lake Pontchartrain sailing scene in short order.

Colin was the dealer for Hobie, Prindle, NACRA, Stilletto and Ericson monohulls, also BIC sailboards.

Anyway, it was an unlikely and perhaps even impure start in the eyes of some, but sailing took hold for good.

It's no wonder that with my Hobie roots I now live on a catamaran. My wife and I have been cruising full time for four years and loving it!

Funny how life's little twists and turns affect us.

What if my Augie's Delago survey had come up with a Harley as a winner? I probably would not even be out here cruising right now and what a shame that would be! I got lucky!

I guess you just never know, right?

All the best,

Buddy

sailorboy1 · 29-10-2008, 06:34

My start was on the beach in Cancun while walking along and thinking about how I could travel more. Came upon a crusier and this strated me thinking "yeah a boat", but since I knew I was never going to have enough to pay for fuel it became "yeah a sailboat". Spent the next couple of years researching sailboat cruising. Since that didn't scare me off I spent another year reading how to sail books. Finally took sailing lessons this year to bareboat level and joined a sail club. Now that a year of sailing has been completed and I like it (like it more than I expected as my hope really was that I wouldn't hate it enough to give up the purpose which was cruising) My plan is to get a mid size boat for next couple of years, then trade up to the crusier 2 years before it is time to "leave".

I have noticed that sailboats grow on trees since near as I can tell most don't move much.

NorthCoastSail · 29-10-2008, 06:55

I guess I haven't really started yet. However, that is shortly going to change.

I first went sailing on my friend's 28-foot boat on Long Island Sound when I was 16. I loved it. Loved the quiet and the peaceful aspect of it.

However, college, career and marriage intervened and sailing was put on the back burner. When we moved here (Rochester, NY) in 1988, I saw that one of the local colleges had a summer sailing course. I signed up and remembered how much fun it was. Subsquently, my twin boys came along, and we all know what that does to any recreational ambitions.

The last few years, we have rented a house on Keuka Lake for a couple of weeks in the summer (we are friends with the owner). I found a Sunfish stored away and asked them if we could use it. I figured out how to rig it (obviously not a mammoth intellectual challenge) and my son and I took turns sailing it up, down and across the lake.

Now I've decided that I'm going to take some formal ASA instruction from one of the yacht clubs here next summer, with an eye to buying a small cruiser sometime in the next couple of years (please explain to me how one can buy a sailboat with no sailing knowledge? I don't get that).

It's a pretty late start (55), but I don't care. I've been putting it off long enough.

Pelagic · 29-10-2008, 08:02

SCUBA diving got me into the water and then on one salvage job on a sunken 45ft ketch I thought….I can do better than that!

sugar and spice · 29-10-2008, 08:44

I always wanted to sail. I finally, at 36, bought a Catalina 22 and a book called "Idiots Guide to Sailing." I went down to the boat, matched the diagrams to the boat, set everything up and motored out into SanDiego Bay. I dropped the sails and spent four hours sailing that first day. 2 weeks later, I crewed on a Schock 35 in a few races and bought a Catalina 27.

Love every minute of it

SVBajamas · 29-10-2008, 09:09

My wife and I met a guy in the Apostle Islands working on a Searunner (Trimaran). He was selling everything and sailing off to Mexico to live out his days. We vowed from that day forward that THIS what what we were searching for and wanted it for ourselves.
It took us MANY years of searching before we found the Bristol 32 that we currently own. Our house has been on the market ever since our boat purchase. Once we are free from that expense, we GONE!

Bajamas

Agur's Wish · 29-10-2008, 09:11

Being raised in SW Kansas, all I grew up with were bass boats and ski boats I had never even seen a boat with a cabin. However, the cap'n had grown up on Lake Texoma and had always had the dream. So we started out just like most and took a few charters and kept thinking of some day. And then it got fast forwarded when we went to the Annapolis boat show just to look at boats and I'm sure you can guess what happened. Watch out for those boat shows, you can end up with a boat whether you're ready or not. You can read my account of the full story and how we did in my article "Smitten" on my blog. We are very glad we didn't wait.

Glenn C · 01-11-2008, 17:28

Not sure how it started, as I was the only one in my family interested. Although legend has it that my great great grandfather o my mothers side died in losing a bet that he could dive off the top yard of a square rigger for 1 pound. Apparently, as Maxwell Smart would say...'missed the water by that much' .....hit the deck and never did collect. Back to me we used to vacation on the beach over summer on Port Phillip Bay. ( Melbourne Oz) in 1968 as a 12 year old I had saved up and bough my first boat for the princly sum of 68 ozzie dollars. It was a North bridge trainer, Basically a surfboard with amast. It was 8ft with a single cotton sail, and it could cream all those kids in their dinghy like sabots!! I lived on that boat all summer and taught myself, my sister and my dad to sail Progressed from there through vraious moths, fireballs, eel boats to commencing building my own Roberts 36 soon as I left university with an engineering degree. Cruised that boat for 3 years or so. Fast forward 25 years or so, and hear I am in Montreal, boatless, facing my first winter, and figuring out just how and when I get my hands on a Lightwave 45 !!!