When did you decide to start sailing?

[cruisertwo]

I'm curious about when people decided to start sailing with devotion. My buddy Dan Howitt said it doesn't really become a part of your life until your in your late 20's or older.

[Hydra]

Welcome to CruisersForum, cruisertwo
I disagree with your buddy. I started sailing frequently in high school: I had weekly access to sailing boats. When I was 17, my parents gave me a "pocket cruiser". Since then, sailing is part of my life.

Alain

[Greenhand]

Mr. Greenhand started sailing as a pre-teen, but moved on to other hobbies after graduating college and moving to an area where he didn't know any sailors.

Ms. Greenhand was 39 when she first set foot on a sailboat, 41 when she first moved aboard.

[captainstubbie]

I grew up in an area in the central us where there just were not many lakes, and fishing was the primary purpose of what were there. When I moved to northern Minnesota to a lake I picked up a couple windsurf boards and learned how to windsurf. A friend of mine brought a 16 foot Johnson up with the agreement I would teach him how to windsurf and he would teach me how to sail. After that weekend I sold my windsurf boards, and bought a sailboat. And I've been sailing ever since. My only regret is that I was in my forties when this happened, I sure wish I had been sailing since my teenage years.

what say you?

[zeehag]

age 7. learned definition of the word passion when we first encountered the eleanor, and it has only remained so since 1955. was same for my brother, who was 6 at the time.

[thinwater]

My family didn't know beans about the water, othr than swimming.

When I was school-age I built functioning self designed models (budding engineer), playing with rigs, keels and ballast changes. Several were cats, mostly mono.

At ~ 22 I saw the Hobie 16 nationals, sailed off the beach in Cape May, NJ. I was fully hooked. Over 100 boats, all factory new, assigned to the the racers in rotation. True one design racing.

Of course, I never learned to like racing, but I did modify each boat I've owned to go faster.

[TacomaSailor]

I'd never been on a sailboat until my 2nd year of graduate school when I was 24. My thesis advisors college aged son, whom I had never met, showed up at my apartment door one Sunday morning to ask me to crew for him in a sailboat race that afternoon. I loved an adventure and said 'sure' but had never even seen a sailboat from closer than 100-yards.

Three hours later I was in the water beside a capsized Melges C-scow, which in 1972 was about the fastest sailboat in the world. We had tried flying a spinnaker in a squall - probably not a good idea in a planning hull boat with only a skipper and one crewman who had never been on a sailboat in his life.

I was totally captivated by sailing from that moment forward and dedicated myself to becoming a skilled sailor and navigator. Within three years I was teaching dinghy racing, crewing on several big race boats, delivering boats all over the Pacific NW, and living on a Ranger 29 sailboat.

Before I left grad school I made a commitment to work hard, save every penny I could, and retire as early as possible to go sailing around the world on my own boat. I was fortunate to meet a young women who understood my dream and helped fulfill that dream. Our 2nd date was sailing an International 16 which I pitchpoled while on a screaming plane in a thunderstorm in the middle of a very large lake. She was trapped under the turtled boat with the mainsheet wrapped around her neck and chest.

She thought it hilarious and away we went on 41-years of marital bliss!

I retired at age 52 and the next year we left on a long term cruise in our relatively new cruiser. Sixteen years later we still live on the boat.

[thomm225]

I decided after reading this book.

Okay maybe not reading but I looked at all the pictures ..................a lot!

http://www.amazon.com/Disneys-Donald.../dp/0307021459

[Stumble]

I was five or six when my dad took me out on a Southcoast 21 at dawn. Watching the sun rise and sailing silently through the morning breeze was it for me. I have been on or around sailboats the rest on my life. My wife thinks I may be a little obsessed, but every time I go sailing there is a part of me that remembers that early spring dawn and smiles.

Since then I have sailed everything from a Snark (sailing ice chest) to 70' maxi racers, cruised and raced, deliveries and lived aboard, worked in a yard or payed a yard, but it has always involved sailboats.

[roverhi]

I was 10 years old when I read Robinson Crusoe. Immediately knew I wanted to sail. Talked my parents into letting me spend my saved up Christmas/Birthday money on a Sailfish Kit Boat. Built it myself and sailed it dadily every summer till I went away to College. First chance I had after graduating bought a 26' sailboat and went from there.

[SkiprJohn]

I had spent 10 years in the Navy onboard 3 Destroyers and done a tour in Vietnam. I got stationed in Germany at a joint services command and decided to do something different than all the other services were doing and took Red Cross sailing classes on Chiemsee. I've been sailing ever since. I was 27 when I took those classes more than 40 years ago.

[StuM]

Started at High School in the early '60s - not really surprising giving that my formative years were around the Solent.

[farm sail]

Got hooked on sailing about age 12 but my life was pretty full at that time and my bank account was pretty empty so it was another 30 years before I could take up the habit

[Pegu Club]

I was relatively young, 18/19 years old. My highschool friend, taught me to sail while we were in the Marines, Cherry point NC, sunfish, then a 16 ft Rebel, which we capsized, righted and sailed back to the dock, got banned from the base boat docks for six months, luckly it was winter..... Back at it six months later, , then, years later, the girl that makes my heart bark soft said, I'm taking sailing lessons at Mystic seaport, I said mind if I join you? And now we are on our 2nd sail boat, a Bristol 29.9, currently rebedding all the deck hardwhare, splashes this up coming spring,

[TeddyDiver]

Don't remember excactly but I had my first own sailboat at the age of 10. Learned to row before ride a bicycle.