Curious - How'd You Get Started?

[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

[infonote]

Well my father used to sail so I was introduced by my parents. I then took a sailing course. I currently do not have much time to sail, I try to go once a week, due to work and masters course I am following.

Curious to hear other people answers

[stevensc]

With my Dad in a wooden Lightning, "Balckjack" I don't recall the hull number.
Steve

[cal40john]

I became interested in sailing, so I bought a book on it. After reading the book, I couldn't convince myself to just go down to the local lake in Coloardo Springs and rent a boat. The owner of the scuba shop I worked in said he knew how to sail and would take me sometime. End of the summer came around and we hadn't gotten around to it. I was going away to college out of state for my second year of school that fall and when the shop owner heard it was his alma mater, University of Washington where he learned to sail, he told me to join the sailing club there. That was 32 years ago, and I'm still a member.

Washington Yacht Club

My kids have been sailing since before they can remember. They took sailing lessons at age 8 at Sail Sandpoint. This last summer I got them a Hobie 14 since they whined about the stupid Optimists that they never wanted to get back into at the lesson program. The Hobie cost less than the lessons for the two of them. Sail Sandpoint is a good operation, I guess I just polluted my kids with my Hobie 20 long before they took lessons.

John

[speciald@ocens.]

Annapolis Sailing School - "learn to sail in one weekend" - 1976. Bought our first boat at the Annapolis show that Fall - a Cal 2-27. Have had a sailboat since then.

[imagine2frolic]

I always had an interest in sailing. When I was 25 a friend took me on the Mississippi river out of Alton Illinois. I didn't understand it, but loved it. Years later an empty berth that was already paid for came available to me.

We sailed out of Ft. Lauderdale to Bimini, Freeport, bimini, and back to Lauderdale. I loved it, but another 8 years passed, and I found myself living on Nob Hill in S.F. Ca. Everday I would watch the boats on the bay. Finally I went down, and took 40 hrs of lessons. 3 months later bought Frolic, and haven't stopped since 90.

[haulback]

Always thought sailing away over a horizion was the sort of thing I would like to do, but had never been on a sailboat. Quit being totally haywire and around age 30 built a 26' T-bird - the day it launched was my first time on a sailboat.

I took a power squadron 'basic boating' course as I was building my T-bird. This is an excellent introduction to basic navigation, boat safety, rules of the road, buoyage etc. ....Highly recommenced from this sailor....

Taught myself to sail while exploring local waters in SW British Columbia over next 5 or 6 years. Sold off Windskimmer and bought a Gulf Island 29 (similar to an Alberg 30) Fiddled with, and fixed her up for a few years then did a solo trip to Hawaii and back with her in '99, just to see if I really WOULD like being offshore.

In '01 bought present (and probably last) boat, a Spencer 35. Spent 8 1/2 months on the hard replacing all systems, did bottom/blister job, modified rig a little, some interior work...generally a full refit....then took off in '02 for a quick shakedown to Hawaii and back as a competitor in the Singlehanded Transpac race. Another Solo T-pac to Hawaii in '04 but kept on going afterwards for a full circumnavigation, ending up back in BC in fall of '06. Another run down to San Francisco, over to Hawaii, and back this summer just passed.

Jim

[imagine2frolic]

haulback......WOW that's HAULING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AVSkipper]

I sailed as a kid when my uncle taught me how on a Sunfish on Little Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire. I loved it, but years went by before I sailed again. I went out twice in CA with another uncle on his Catalina 320 and enjoyed it, but did not feel I had the disposable income at the time to do it on my own. Last year, a high school buddy took us out a few times and I was hooked. I joined the Aventura Sailing Association and started taking classes. In just over a year, I have sailed about 35 times including 16 as skipper, 1 Catalina crossing, and 1 race. I am so glad this is going to be part of the rest of my life.

[David_Old_Jersey]

I was kidnapped by Blackbeard the Pirate at a young age



I'm the one on the right

[Hud3]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

I'm the one on the right

How could such a cute little kid grow up to be....


[Just kidding!]

[roverhi]

I always wanted to sail. Don't know where it came from growing up on a farm in Michigan. We moved to a small lake when I was 11.

[iiii]

Got started by doing my boss at the time a favor, helping a friend of his sail a 32'er for Clear Lake, Tx. to Corpus Christi and loved it!
The following week I bought an 11' Snark and started to learn to sail. Took a few weeks to get the hang of it, but it's been about 30 years now and still sailing! Ain't life grand?

[rjrendemd]

A friend took me out on Lake Michigan while I in med school. I was hooked! I used my first paycheck as a resident in St. Louis to buy a Victoria 18. I never looked back. That was 30 years ago. I chartered my first boat 25 years ago in the BVI. The wind was so good I came home and sold my boat. No more inland lakes for me after that.

[roverhi]

I always wanted to sail. Don't know where it came from growing up on a farm in Michigan and never having seen a sailboat except in pictures. We moved to a lake when I was 11. My dad bought a small runabout that I took out as often as I could afford the gas. Still it wan't a sailboat. When I was 13 talked my parents into letting me use my savings to by a sailfish boat kit. I had no woodworking experience, let alone boat building and the neighbor who said he'd help me suddenly got scarce. I just dove in and built the boat. The kit was pretty complete, most of the wood precut so I didn't need power tools, and I was able to put it together in a couple of weeks. Now I had a sailboat but no sailing experience. No other sailboats, let alone sailors on the lake so no help there. Only thing to do was launch it and go. Taught myself everything there is to know about getting the wind to propel a boat. Spent almost every day, all day, on that boat for the next three years. Sold the boat when I went to College and put sailing out of my mind till I graduated and the Navy sent me to Honolulu.

I was spending my money on women and wine in Waikiki with nothing to show for it except a hangover. Decided to buy a boat. Talked a sympathetic loan officer at a local credit union into giving me a definitely sub prime loan. Guess he figured I had a secure job for at least the term of the loan and the military was pretty good at making sure their charges paid their debts. So I had a 26' boat to sail, a VW bus to live in, and was in paradise. What more could a single 23 year old bachelor hope for?? Especially when the boat turned out to be a babe magnet. Once again, no experience, just small lake sailing on the Sailfish. The guy that was supposed to help me, considered sailing an excuse to get blotto. In fact he didn't even need sailing for an excuse to pass out. When he got so drunk at the launching that he passed out in the back of my van, I had to sail the boat the six miles to its berth, out in the ocean, on my own, in the dark and I never looked back. Bought a how to sail book and sailed that boat 3-4 days a week and all over the Islands at every opportunity.

Aloha
Peter O.
Pearson 35