When did you decide to start sailing?

[hsi88]

Basically the same boat as the "Kool" sailboat mentioned earlier, I started on an 11 foot Snark. I bought mine from a closing Woolco department store for $200. It had the ABS plastic covered foam core and was a VERY easy boat to learn how to sail. Within a month, I moved up to a Snark Sunflower ($250 at the same closing Woolco) which included a splash guard (much needed in rougher waters) and mine included a more traditional main sail, which was about 20% larger than the lateen style sail on my other Snark. I even added a 1.2 HP Eska (also bought at that same Woolco). An excellent motor that seemed more like 3 HP.

I then bought a Mac 25 a couple of years later and sold it before I got married. I recently got back into sailing (no more wife) and have 3 sailboats (still small) with the largest being a Cat 27. As most people I sail with have zero sailing skills, I will probably never venture much beyond 30 feet which is about the largest boat I would want to single hand, but large enough for extended trips (like to the Bahamas).

[shantycrew]

I was 60 my wife 54 when I read Ellen MacAthers book Taking on the world on holiday in the Dominican Republic. Back in England we went on a "start yachting" RYAweekend in Scotland and were hooked.That was back in 2008, Our plan was to sail the Atlantic to our holiday condo in the DR but as we soon discovered after a few flotilla holidays in the Med and a bareboat charter in Scotland that this was perhaps a bit ambitious. We took the RYA day skipper and yachtmaster courses and eventually sold our house in th UK. In 2013 we boat a 40ft Hardin Sea Wolf in Peurto Rico and set out to circumnavigate our adopted island of Hispanola. We have been living aboard for three years and it that time have sailed to Cuba Jamaica,Haiti and all around Hispanola. We've discovered the joys of fixing boats in exotic locations and have had the adventures of a lifetime.
Seems like most of the folk on this thread began as they fell out of the cradle so thought i would just like to pop this in to say your never too old just wish we had discovered sailing a little sooner. Now 68 but they say sailing years dont count so looking forward to at least another 10.

[JPA Cate]

I was separated from my first husband, 38 yrs. old, and a woman friend invited me to crew with some of her skippers for whom she crewed as well. A few races on SF Bay, then in the ocean with the MORA fleet, then coastal cruising with Jim, in the Yankee 30....a long time ago. We took the Yankee to Hi from SF and back, to see if we liked ocean passages, and the die was cast!

Ann

[barnakiel]

I started sailing at about 4. I would never believe this as I no longer remember, but my parents have photographs of me at 4, in a sailing boat and all smiles.

I was probably 6 or 7 when I started sailing Optimists and I am sure I loved it from the very start and then it only got worse. Still, there was nothing to decide back then - things come naturally at 6. You do not make decisions, you just live it.

So, in my case, it was not what I decided but rather what decided it was me.

b.

[boatman61]

When I broke my leg..

[puffcard]

When I was 10 and my parents moved to Norfolk Va in a house near the water, I knew I wanted a boat. At 11 we built rafts. At 12 I got a rowboat because my parents thought going to kill myself on the rafts. The rowboat that I could launch myself, gave me freedom on the water. When I was 13, I converted the rowboat into a sailboat and the world was my oyster. I built a sail rig out of bamboo and a orange tarp and found a piece of alum for the mast. Then later added leeboards and a rudder and I was on the river almost everyday during the summer. Sailed downwind and have to row back half the time. Had several friends, that got small boats. The king of the fleet was a Harpoon by Whaler, the pulpier was a foam Snark, the one you get by smoking enough Kools to get cancer. Which I later inherited the rig, after a friend jumped into it and it broke in half. While he went up to his waist into river mud. He starting screaming for help and all we could do was laugh at the poor guy. That rig converted my boat into a true sailing machine. From there I've have always own a sailboat for the last 50 years. My boats: Rowboat/sailboat, Sunfish, Force 5, Hobie 16 (5 of them), Hobie 18, Super Cat 17, Super Cat 19, Hobie 33 and Tartan 37. For about 20 years spent more time offshore racing than sailing my own boats.

When I was 14, took my dad out on my rowboat/sailboat and he caught the bug. Then the family bought a 27ft Choy Lee we learned to sail together and they later went up in size and sailed around the world.

[Panope]

Age 15. After building my 4th plywood boat. The first with a sail.

Steve

[boatpoker]

I was raised in Fraserburgh on the North Sea where I learned to sail. My great Grandfather was a shipwright and ran a single cylinder diesel trawler (a real one)and family lore has him running whiskey single handed to Iceland in that 40' boat. My Grandfather was a shipwright and my father designed screws for Harland Wolf among others.

From childhood on I had nothing to do with boats until I drove by "Isle of Skye" when I was 42. As I admired the boat a fella put a for sale sign on it. I bought it within 15 minutes. Two weeks later I quit my job and went back to school to get my Masters Ticket, become SAMS Accredited, ABYC Standards Certified and become a Certified Marine Corrosion Analyst.

Photos below - Me, my little brother and Mom with my Great Grandfathers boat somewhere in the background and another photo of the boat (Isle of Skye) that changed my life.

[IdoraKeeper]

Originally Posted by Panope

Age 15. After building my 4th plywood boat. The first with a sail.

Steve

Me too, plywood Penguin., Age 15, kept her on the neighbourhood Beach on Sammamish.. Would sneak down and sail in the winter too.

[puffcard]

Originally Posted by IdoraKeeper

Me too, plywood Penguin., Age 15, kept her on the neighbourhood Beach on Sammamish.. Would sneak down and sail in the winter too.

Had to laugh about the Penguin sailing in the winter. While at boarding school in Annapolis on the Severn River. I took a school Penguin out by myself in a November blow and peeled the bottom right off of it. It started to open in the bow and peeled all the way to the trunk. In full glory it sanked in two seconds right in the middle of the river just before sunset. No lifejacket, had to swim to shore. Got back to my room at dark. Wet and cold my roommate asked what happened. I said I killed the Penquin. We looked the next day, never did found the boat. Coached asked where's the Penguin, me and my roommate said we guessed it was stolen. He said hope it sanked on them and we just smiled.

[msponer]

I read Tania Aebi's Maiden Voyage when I was 19, which made me want to sail far.