Your first boat.

[Orion Jim]

My first was a plywood concrete form. Used a 2X4X8 as a push pole. It was enough to get a couple kids out on the water and started a lifelong avocation.

[MicHughV]

It was Robin Lee Graham's epic rtw voyage in 1965, started when he was 16, that really sunk it in for me. I was smitten, this, I thought, is the life for me.

[dan104]

In the back yard in San Antonio Texas (not a lot of water around), made from building scraps for housed behind us. Built after seeing Wild River at movies.


Now I have two, a Columbia 8,7 and a Gozzard 36. Will sail the Gozzard back from Islands in Spring and then sadly sell the Columbia (she has been one heck of a boat for me!).

[Pegu Club]

First boat was a Bristol 24.7, great little boat six thousand pounds total displacement , with three thousand pounds of lead down below, it forgave all of our newb mistakes. Miss that boat…

Fair winds,

[Be Free]

Originally Posted by Orion Jim

My first was a plywood concrete form. Used a 2X4X8 as a push pole. It was enough to get a couple kids out on the water and started a lifelong avocation.

Same here except it was a broom handle and a piece of scrap cloth. I guess I always preferred sail over power

[sowwaninii]

Paddling a cement mixing tub on the Charles River.

[OS2Dude]

The first boat I had was a used Dolphin Senior. (Sort of an over-sized Sailfish.) It was a great boat to sail on the Bayou that was just down the hill from our house in FL. Still remember the water balloon fights I used to have with some other kids who had similar craft. Once my boat was run down by some 'friends' who had borrowed their parent's power boat. They would race at me and turn away at the last second, and the last time their steering cable broke just as they started to turn. I rolled off the back of my boat and they ran right up and over where I was sitting just moments before. Fun Times!
I didn't have a boat trailer for it, had to pull it up on a small utility trailer to get it to the water and back home. Too young for a driver's license, so I had to move it by hand. Did I mention we lived on a hill above the bayou?

[Giro]

I was 8 years old, about one hundred miles away from the Pacific Ocean but had an unquenchable desire to sail. So I lashed several plastic jugs to the bottom of a makeshift raft which had no serious mast except for a two by four attached, horizontally, with a piece of gray canvass for a sail. The construction of the “vessel” took about three weeks to complete…..and her maiden voyage consisted of a launch in the Gould Canal in the San Joaquin Valley of of California and lasted about sixty seconds before promptly sinking.
My second sailboat was a twelve foot Lanteen rigged, manufactured sailboat that I used to sail at Huntington Lake of California until I was about twelve years old. Fast forward, my wife and I have our little 25 foot sloop in Monterey Bay and visit and sail every several weeks, or so, many decades later. Nothing exciting, but the addiction never ends.

[Dave_R]

I guess I was "born" into sailing with the proverbial "silver spoon," compared to many of you.

First boat was an Alcort Sunfish.

It was at an important time of my life. For professional reasons, my dad had to live in downtown Manhattan, NYC, USA for a time. He was recently and sadly divorced. Didn't want us kids living there, so a friend graciously offered to have me live with them in London for a semester. I was 13. It was a tough time.

When I came back to the USA, he rented a cottage in Connecticut near Long Island Sound. My 11 yr old sister and I spent each day alone while he went into the big city. He bought the Sunfish so I would have something to do.

Each morning, I would pack a lunch, drag the boat the block to the Sound, and sail all day, every day. Loved every minute of it. Never once got bored. Got caught in a storm once, through stupidity. For a moment or two I thought I would die. But i worked my way through it. Never told my dad bout that. I was afraid he would make me stop sailing, and I couldn't do that.

Have been in love with the water ever since.

[goboatingnow]

I was 17 and handy with my hand I fixed up an old ply sailer owned by my uncle and went out of the nearby estuary with violent over falls and a 8 knot ebb

We had an atomic petroleum engine !! Not a life jacket between us

[sailorboy1]

My first boat was a 1988 Cal-39. I only had 3 months sailing experience and that boat turned out to be too small.

[Scorpius]

A log from the beach in front of our summer cabin - with a piece of 1x4 flotsam as a paddle. Got TERRIBLE sunburns on my thighs!

[Chili Palmer]

My first boat was a large chunk of ice that we broke off in the local creek and we floated about mile down stream before we couldn't go any further.

I was around 10.

[lestersails]

My first sailboat was a radio controlled model of an America's Cup racing yacht. I actually learned a decent amount of basic sailing skills from that boat. And, the conditions in which they can be sailed is pretty narrow, so you develop some skills in assessing weather.

[BBill]

Living on the water at 8 years old I found an abandoned pram half covered in the mud which was partially burned and on its last legs. My cousin and I made a bedsheet sail and that was the boat that started it all. Boats have been a life long hobby since then. I quit counting how many but just counted 17 sail between 20' and 42'....then there are motorboats, paddle boats and dinks. 7 in the fleet now at 74yrs old.