Curious - How'd You Get Started?

[BigDreams]

Originally Posted by martinworswick

hi there,

after asking a question about getting started in sailing, it got me thinking about how others got to where they are now!

a lot of you are doing what one day i hope also to be doing and i'm interested to know how you got to the level that you are.

thanks in advance

martin

My girlfriend in my high school senior year asked me to drive her down to Marina Del Rey in Southern California so she could make her sailing lesson. That was my first exposure to the idea. Then, I was watching the catamarans on a lake & asked a friend if he wanted to go 50-50, which he did and we bought one together. I'm still trying to learn, though, due to getting sidetracked in life. (Don't get married until you hit 30 years old ! )

[Ocean Girl]

First I have to say how enjoyable it was to read everybody's start in sailing.

I was 19, landlocked and taking some college classes. I was miserable and wanted to drop out. I thought to myself if I was going to drop out of school and give my mom yet another grey hair then I better do something I really like. It was probably the first time in my life that I was open to anything, not taking into account what I thought my family expected from me- just "what did I want to do with my life?". Anyways, I realized I wanted the ocean. I grew up around sunshine and beaches (Hawaii, Florida etc.). My parents scuba dived, so I was swimming before I was walking. It was the ocean I wanted. So I hopped in my car and drove to the nearest water, I figured you need a boat to be on the ocean. I ran into some nice guys that ran a yacht brokerage. Actually, they were a bit shady but even brokers have their own code of honor. They adopted me and put me to work cleaning their boats. In exchange, I got a small wage and was able to live on any boat I chose in the brokerage. These were repo boats (I said they were shady). So I lived on a Columbia, a Defour, a Compac, a Chris craft -more than I can remember before the year was out.
My very first sailing experience- the bosses at the brokerage pionted at a boat and said take her out. My maiden voyage, solo by the way, ended badly when I got caught in a tree (thats another story ), But by time I pulled back into the slip, branches and leaves scattered on deck, I was hooked. Through out my twenties I sailed and worked on boats sometimes I worked for free just to learn. It never ceases to amaze me how boats and the ocean seem to get into you, become a part of you. Landlubbers just shake their heads when I try to explain it. I know you guys get it and thats why I love this forum so much.

Erika

[maxingout]

When I was in college, I read about Robin Lee Graham sailing around the world in Dove. That sparked an interest in sailing, but I didn't go sailing until nearly six years later when I purchased a 22 foot sailboat in the Panama Canal Zone while I was an intern at Gorgas Hospital.

[Ocean Girl]

Maxing out,
Fabulous website! boy what are you an film maker or something?

[Allan S]

A supervisor I had while in the Navy took me out in his Bombadier (sp?) and I was hooked. The rum consumed had nothing to do with it. There was a twenty odd year hiatus before I bought a real cheap boat and now thinds are rolling rapidly towards a livaboard in the next year or so....Allan

[Jim Mc]

Originally Posted by martinworswick

hi there,

after asking a question about getting started in sailing, it got me thinking about how others got to where they are now!

a lot of you are doing what one day i hope also to be doing and i'm interested to know how you got to the level that you are.

thanks in advance

martin

I Joined a club and started crewing for a fellow who raced a Diamond ,[ 30 foot racing boat ] he was a good teacher and it was a fast boat, full on fun. bought a 23 foot swing keel plastic fantastic, and have gangs of fun with her.But I still crew for other people in races and other cruises. The club thing has worked for me.
regards Jim

[maxingout]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

Maxing out,
Fabulous website! boy what are you an film maker or something?

My son has a degree in media and communications and music. I purchased a couple of professional video cameras, and he did the rest. He shoots, edits, does voiceovers, writes and performs music. He just won a battle of the bands with his band called Too Many Drummers. If you want to hear some amazing music, check out his website at Too Many Drummers . Then click on the music player and have a listen. I don't know where he got his talent because I am tone deaf.

[Ocean Girl]

Well, tell your crew they have an official groupie
Good job.

[maxingout]

Originally Posted by Ocean Girl

Well, tell your crew they have an official groupie
Good job.

Groopies are good. This weekend they play the Icthus music festival in Kentucky on main stage. Usually about 20,000 people show up for this music festival in Kentucky. That should be a mega groopie. I wish I could be there.

[Randy]

I was raised in South Dakota on a dairy farm, got into carpentry - hated working there in the winters so I moved to Maui. I was working on a cottage in upcountry with a guy who'd built a 47' ketch. He took me sailing one weekend and when we hit the wind line in the channel the rail was down & I was hooked.
It got me thinking of an article I'd read in 'The last Whole Earth Catalog' about Searunner tris and I decided to build one but a couple guys had one they'd sailed from Santa Cruz to Tahiti to Maui. They sold me theirs and I continued to learn to sail. In a couple of years I sailed it to Seattle then took it down to San Diego.

[Bash]

When passengers/guests/crew ask where I learned to sail, I tell them it was by earning sailing merit badge. Strangely, some don't seem to find this information all that reassuring.

[FedeV]

When i was 19 we took a family vacation to a lake in the Patagonia, and used to go to a beach that belonged to a local sailing club. A friend's cousins worked there, teaching optimist classes. Talking to them me and my mom became interested, so we took 4 days of classes in a Laser and an Escape dinghy (a yellow roto-molded thing).

The following year we went to Playa del Carmen, and the hotel had some Hobies (wave, i think. 14 footers, mainsail only, boomless) which you could take out if you signed a waver and convinced them you knew how to sail. I took my dad, mom and little brother out every day, and they really liked it.

Last summer in Florida we met up with my father's cousin and her husband, from Maine. They sail and have lived aboard in the past. Me and my uncle went out on a trimaran (i don't remember the make) and he gave me some pointers.

When i got back home, I was hopelessly hooked. I'm currently taking lessons in order to get the Helmsman License.

That's it so far.

[beachgirl1952]

I learned to sail on Curacao at age 7 (till 14) ...
from bath tubs to Sterns and sailfish ...
to tack was pushing the helm, to jibe was pulling ...
look at the little flag on top of the mast / sails had to be the same direction ...
that was it ...


then no sailing for 35 yrs ...


back into sailing (but now bigger boats) through the internet ...
sailing from Long Beach to Catalina Island v.v. (and being a liveaboard for 4 weeks) was the first experience on a bigger boat (60ft) ...
then Bahama's from ft. Lauderdale v.v. twice ...
delivery-crew on a new HR40 from Sweden to Annapolis ...
crewed for a friend from Curacao to St Martin ...
Trinidad, Dom. Republic, Bonaire and a lot of local sailing ...
sunfish or centaur (18ft) ...
boatsitting sometimes ...

guess that's it for now ...

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by BigDreams

My girlfriend in my high school senior year asked me to drive her down to Marina Del Rey in Southern California so she could make her sailing lesson. That was my first exposure to the idea. Then, I was watching the catamarans on a lake & asked a friend if he wanted to go 50-50, which he did and we bought one together. I'm still trying to learn, though, due to getting sidetracked in life. (Don't get married until you hit 30 60 years old ! )

Fixed that one up for you...

[Maren]

Originally Posted by martinworswick

After asking a question about getting started in sailing, it got me thinking about how others got to where they are now!

Looking back on it, I was to told to go play in traffic, so to speak.

You know, "why don't you go try out the sunfish?"

I could swim; they could see me. People took a more laissez faire approach to parenting in the 70's.