Your first sailing experience

[John Vigor]

Do you remember your very first sail?

I remember mine well. I was 14 years old. I was standing on a large low rock at the seaside when a young man in a open 14-foot Redwing sailing dinghy came past and yelled: "Wanna come for a sail?"

I yelled back: "Yes."

He went about and came back past slowly, a foot off the rock, and I scrambled aboard. We showed me how to work the jib, and change places when we tacked.

We heeled over and bashed and crashed through the warm blue offshore waves under a hot sun -- and I was hooked for life.

I never saw him again after he landed me on my rock and sailed off alone along the coast to his home port. I never learned his name.
But I am eternally grateful to him.

How was your first sail? Did you enjoy it, or were you scared? Do you remember when and where?

John V.

[Russell]

12 years old, summer camp on the Chesapeake Bay.

The sailing group was supposed to have 2 persons per boat (sunfish). But there was an odd number of kids and they did not want anyone sailing alone, one boat got 3 kids (crowded for a sunfish, even for kids!). So I was on the 3 kid boat, and as luck would have it my boat mates were the two cutest girls in the camp.

So for two weeks I spent half the day with these cute girls who adored me (or so I liked to think!) sailiing. We were the only boat that never capsized (except on purpose to learn to right the boat) and we won more then half the races despite being at a weight disadvantage by having one extra body aboard.

One of the girls went to the closing day of camp dance with me.

After that, was certainly hooked, it came natural and was one of the best time of my youth.

I grew up on powerboats, from basically birth I was on the water mostly on searay type boats. But sailing was my love. My first "big boat" experiences were in my teens on none other then a CD36 owned by a friends parents, named Gemini II. I cant help think that experience probably led me put the CD36 on my short list when I sold my Catalina 30 and started to look for my full time cruising boat.

[Dixon Hemphill]

Although I really don't remember just when it was but I'm certain my first sail was with my dad way back in the 1930's. I must have been about seven years old then and I remember sailing on my dad's 18 foot sailboat. Wish I knew the manufacturer and model but that detail is long gone. We lived in Westerly RI and dad kept his boat at Hall's Boatyard in Avondale, RI which is still in business. In fact last June I sailed there with a friend from Annapolis where I now keep VASA my Cape Dory 28.

I do remember how slow my dad's boat seemed to go through the water and I recall wondering if we would ever get back to the boatyard.

[bottomscraper]

With the styrofoam hull. I think my Mom paid about $79 for it back in the mid 1960's as a gift to my Dad. This is a picture I found on the web. Ours had a red and white nylon sail. The hull was all styrofoam but my Dad gave it a coat of fiberglass after a few years. It centerboard and rudder were replaced a few times while we owned it.

[img]http://64.30.203.214/family/albrektson/ ... nark81.jpg[/img]

[Warren S]

a Sailfish, built by my father of wood from a kit (he later built a Glen-L hydroplane). I was maybe 7 or 8. Used to show off by going out in higher winds when others would stay in, and heel the boat over until the boom was dragging in the water.

[Paul D.]

I went on a back from the dead wooden Snipe with my brother in 1972. He had fashioned a 4x4 mast and it was not pretty but she moved. I believe it sank at the dock at the end of the summer.

I didn't sail for years BUT then at 17, I and three friends took out none other than a Typhoon owned by one of their fathers. We sailed all night and since they all crashed hard I took the tiller under the bright moonlight for hours till we found some place to drop anchor and sleep - there were FOUR berths on the Typhoon you know. Luxury!

I was hooked. I ended up teaching sailing and racing on OPBs and then bought a.... wait for it.... Typhoon.

Paul

[Dave H]

1998, I was 48, a canoeist, had been in a wooden boat building club, three of us. First we each build a canoe, kayak, and shell. Then we worked together to build "Beach Pea" a redesigned Maine Peapod from the Wooden Boat designs. A beamy little lapstrake double ender, with a lug rig. I was captivated by that first sail... to be moving nicely without rowing or paddling. The designer encouraged us to learn to sail her without the rudder. The lines of that short fat little boat are perfect for steering by weight shifting. It was fabulous, but not much for going windward. After reading one book, I was quite sure I needed to be sailing a wooden Wayfarer. So, I drove out to Maine, and hauled back "Bittergreen". But when I saw the heavy air performance of John Danicic's typhoon "Moana" and Paul 's typhoon "Hornet" it had to be a typhoon. So I hauled a typhoon here (Minneapolis) from San Fransisco. And now that I need a little more room I sail "Puffin", typhoon senior. A Toast! To Carl Alberg and the builders at Cape Dory!

[trapper]

I was 5 and I crewed in a Beetle Cat (12' wooden gaff rigged) on Waquoit Bay, near East Falmouth, Mass. Waquoit Bay Yacht Club where I took sailing lessons every summer. I finally got my own Beetle Cat when I was 10. Then I was Capitan for a while, until it was time to turn the boat over to my younger brother. He turned out to be the better sailor.

[Joe Myerson]

My family had been spending summers on Buzzards Bay since I was three years old. When I was 11, my father announced that he had bought "a sailboat." The boat turned out to be Hull #6 of the Beetle Swan, an ugly-duckling of a boat that was the first production fiberglass sailboat. She had a marconi rig, and lacked the grace of the wooden Beetle Cats that the families who belonged to yacht clubs had.

One of our neighbors took Dad and me for a single lesson: He showed us how to tack. Then we were on our own.

Dad managed to capsize soon thereafter, doing a flying gybe and holding onto the sheet as the boat went over. I, on the other hand, just spent my spare time tacking back and forth, learning the boat.

That same summer another neighbor bought an old, leaky wooden Sailfish. I helped open it up, re-caulk the seams and paint it--and became a part-owner.

Between those boats, I learned to sail. Within a year or two I was crewing for other neighbors' kids in their Beetle Cats and Herreshoff 12 1/2s. (We still didn't/couldn't join the local club, but my sailing expertise was appreciated.)

I still sail out of the same area--graduating from the Beetle Swan, that died in one of the hurricanes, to a wooden Hustler (an 18-foot, hard-chined, marconi-rigged catboat), to an O'Day Mariner. Then, as an adult, I bought a wonderful Marshall catboat (a Sanderling).

Wanderlust got the best of me (and Lynne and I got tired of crawling aroubd on our hands and knees when we too a cruise), and I moved up to a CD 25D.

--Joe

[Warren Kaplan]

Back in 1967, when I was 22 years old, I was going out with a girl who had two younger sisters. Her father had a Tartan 27 and for all intents and purposes had no crew. Young girls tend to lay out in the sun on the foredeck and could care less about sail handling.

I was invited along one day and 20 minutes out of the marina on Manhasset Bay and out into Long Island Sound I knew this was something I just had to do. I loved it.

I sailed many times on that boat and learned much. The next year I became engaged to his daughter. As soon as that happened he sold the boat!!

Wise gent, my father-in-law. He dangled the bait. I bit and swallowed very hard and then he sold the boat!!

I must thank my late father-in-law because his actions got me into sailing and, almost 40 years later, I'm still married to the same girl!!

[Judith]

Spring/early summer of 2006 Warren said, "I'd like to rent a sailboat, it needs a 2-person crew, and you're the only one I know brave enough to come with me." (As he tells the story, "brave" has changed to "adventurous" and then "crazy" )

So we rented a 22' Catalina in Atlantic Beach and merrily headed out into the Morehead City turning basin, past a busy (intensely tidal) inlet, and into one of the more-trafficked areas along the NC coast. We dodged all kinds of boats and ran aground twice. I had no idea what a centerboard was, except that Warren fiddled with it a couple times (especially when we ran aground--twice ). And I was a little puzzled by his continuing [very polite] suggestions that I trim the jib: "I DID that once, it's already done! Jeeeez, dyuuude!"

At some point I danced around in the cockpit and said, "This is really FUN!" A few months later, we were boat-owners

[Ned Crockett]

Christmas 1953 I was 14 and my good friend, age 16, got a Moth sailboat for Christmas. She was a beauty. I went by his house that afternoon to see what he got. His dad, a private pilot, had to leave for a trip and his parting words were something like "Do not even think about taking that boat out until I tell you you can". His taillights were no sooner out of the neighborhood when the Moth was being pushed down to Carters Creek on its trailer. It took a while to figure out the rigging, etc., but soon we were under sail. As I remember it was quite cold and windy. We sailed down the Creek to the mouth planning to head out into the Rappahannock River. A gust hit us and my most vivid memory was that my breath was knocked out of me when I hit the water. We were in a mess. I heard the sound of a boat approaching after what seemed like an hour (it was actually less than five minutes). It was a waterman who said later that as soon as he saw the sailboat he went down to his boat fully expecting that he would have to rescue those two young fools in the sailboat. He pulled us out of the water and towed the Moth back to where we launched it. There is no doubt in my mind that he saved our lives. Our clothes were frozen to our bodies as we hauled the Moth back to my friend's house. His dad did not know what we had done until years later. I have been blessed with years of fun cruising the Chesapeake Bay and racing in various sailboats much the wiser and with great respect for wind and weather.

[Carter Brey]

Around 1965. I was about 10 years old. My father was invited out on a classic gaff rigged sloop on the Hudson on a very blustery day. I went along for the ride. Boy, was I hooked.

He subsequently bought and restored a Celebrity 19, mahogany strip planking, wooden spars, leaked like a colander. He kept it in Norwalk, Connecticut. That's where I learned to sail.

Carter

[Steve King]

I have been checking out this board for several years now. My first sailing experience was on a 34' Catalina in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior. A friend invited 6 of us onboard for a weekend. I remember like it was yesterday stepping aboard and wondering how this was going to work. We motored out of Bayfield. The captain asked if I wanted to take the wheel while he put up the sails. I was so excited and nervous! I still remember the moment when we turned off the engine and I felt the sails take over. I have been completely obsessed ever since. My dream now is to have a Cape Dory to call my own. Someday, someday.

Steve King
Minneapolis, MN

[GLutzow]

On a deployment to Tyndall Air Force Base when I was in the Marine Corps I got a sunfish from Special Services and spent the day getting addicted.