Good idea, but why would you wait 18 years to go sailing?! (life is short)
Also
kids don't always live home at age 18.
You can start now though and you can also see the stars in the middle of some inland lakes without light pollution.
I started teaching myself to sail at age 24 when I lived in Tennessee in the early 80's.
I had already owned 5-6 small
power boats 14'-17' because I'm from the coast near here. This from age 16-19 before I joined the military.
When I lived in Memphis I traded my deer rifle for an old
dinghy sailor and stated with that. It wasn't quite what I had in mine so I stopped but then after seeing a few Americas Cup Races 1983, 1987 I got interested again and finally bought a Hobie 16 in 1991 or so.
Soon as I learned to sail it I started
racing it. My son at age 10 was my crew. We raced mainly in TVA Lakes in
Mississippi (Arkabutla and Sardis) but also at Percy Priest Lake in Nashville.
Later I did at
race in Hartwell SC at an inland lake there.
I also crewed on a
Pearson 30 and a
Beneteau 35.5 at Pickwick Lake on the Tennessee River. (also fished for striper below the dam but that's another story)
By the mid 90's my job got transferred to
Pensacola FL.
By then we had 2 Hobie 16's. I found an apartment on the
water where we could keep the
boats assembled just above the high water mark and my son at age 15 with friends would sail the 10-11 miles to
Pensacola Beach to meet girls they had arranged dates with in Chat Rooms on my 1990's vintage computer. Still using command line and DOS 3.2 at that time.
They would hang out over there all day then sail lazily back many times with one kid in the water being dragged or they would flip the boat over for fun just so they could cool off then right the boat and sail on home.
Later I bought more high tech beach cats. (A Nacra 6.0 and a Nacra F-17) Some of the best beach cat racers lived in Pensacola and Ft Walton Beach, FL and they were sailing top of the line beach cats with spinnakers.
We had raced in Ft Walton Beach a couple times already driving down from Memphis.
My son soon cared more about girls that sailboat
racing so I had other crews for a while then finally bought a boat for
single hand sailors which was the Nacra 17 at that time. It's a 2 man boat now
Pictures are of my son and a friend leaving Pensacola main side and about to begin to sail across Pensacola Bay to Pensacola Beach. Another of my son at age 15 waiting for the
race to start at Sardis Lake in
Mississippi. Both taken in 1997.
Btw Arkabutla Lake is about 45 miles from Memphis and Sardis about 70, but they were down interstate 55 so didn't take long to get there.
Other pictures are of me on the lake in South Carolina racing and racing in Pensacola Bay. The race in Pensacola bay was 4 days of racing as it was the Nationals and I was racing one design all boats the same
Also a pictures of my old Bristol 27 Cruising boat I bought for $2,000 that I have been sailing up here since 2011. I sail it in the
Atlantic Ocean and the
Chesapeake Bay. Photos from 2019
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