Question to ever one on sailing

[Dan & Pat]

I grew up on Cuttyhunk Island Mass. where my family ran the general store from the 50's until the early 1990's. When you live on an island, there's nothing else to dream about other than having a nice boat to get around in.

My Dad was a commercial New Bedford Fisherman and my mother's brothers were both Master Captains by the time they were in their 20's. My grandfather owned his own fleet which was run by his sons, and his father before him was Asa Thomson - one of New Bedford's Master Shipwrights of the 1800's.

My 14 year old son is a competant boat handler, although his mother can't seem to get the hang of "things that steer from the back instead of with front wheels and have brakes".

And, my 21 year old son was confidently operating a boat when he was 12. He is proudly serving aboard the big "PRISE" (USS ENTERPRISE CVN 65) currently steaming for the Meditranean Sea. Keep him in your prayers (if I can say that on this board ).

So, I think its in the blood, although I'm not absolutely positive if its nature or nurture.

[Efrost]

I grew up on the south shore of LI and from as far back as I can remember, summer time was spent in, on, or near the water. Rowboats out of Babylon as a kid and then later surfing on Fire Island. College saw an oceanography major meet a woman who grew up on the CT shore. Marriage had me bring a 16ft run about, she brought a sunfish. That was followed by 23 years driving big grey things for Uncle Sam. When my daughter was 11, we sent her off to sailing camp and she insisted on racing Hobie Cats. While my first love had been fishing boats (even my wife to this day would love a Rybovich if we could afford it) I did so much sailing and racing as my daughter grew up, that I shifted to sailing all the time. When I went looking for my present boat, I still almost came home with a beautifully maintained 28 ft Bertram that was for sale in the slip next to the boat I went to look at. But there is something that gets me when you get the sails up and the engine is shut down. It just feels as if all the cares slip away....

[Steve Darwin]

I grew up in Fairhaven, Mass. on Buzzards Bay and spent every summer at my family's cottage, where we always had boats - old and wooden and leaky boats.

My brother got a 14' catboat ("Magpie") when he turned 13 and we sailed that a lot until, like all the boats before it, "Magpie" went onto a Forth-of-July bonfire.

In high school a good friend's father built a nice 16' sloop, which we sail out of Mattapoisett. Then my dad was given an old Star-Class boat (wooden, again), which I and my friends sailed all over the bay. That boat also ended her days on a bonfire.

In college, a friend and I bought an Arrowhead Sloop (wooden, again, built in Cataumet, Mass., I think). This boat we sold, one of the few that escaped the flames.

Then, for 25 years I was without a sailboat, until acquiring an old (1953 but fiberglass) Bull's Eye sloop that the Town of Marion auctioned off as surplus.

"Arabella" joined the "fleet" three years ago. What's next I don't know.

Words can't express how good it has been to get back into sailing, and how much I enjoy my Cape Dory. The motion of a boat under sail in something to be cherished.

[Dick Barthel]

Winthrop:

As a boy I spent summers at my grandparents’ cottage in Fairfield, CT and I remember taking grandpa’s rowboat and rowing up to the many different moored boats and just drifting and listening to the wavelets lap against the hulls and dreaming. I used to try and make my own boat out of old wooden boxes but none of them ever floated.

In the 1970s I had a 17 ft Paceship that I sailed in Long Island sound. After a few years I bucked the trend and sold the Paceship “moving down” to a 10 ft Dyer Dhow sailing dink. My reason was the limited time to sail and the hassle of launching. I still have my Dyer.

In 1980 I remember going to a boat show and boarding a Cape Dory (a 33 I think). I distinctly remember feeling that if I were at sea this was the boat for me with the bronze ports, etc. The price tag was laughably beyond my means if my young family was to eat.

In 2001 with the kids grown and a little more time and money I went in search of the only boat I’ve ever imagined myself in. Some how I found the message board and learned about all the different sized CDs and decided that a 25 or 25D would work. I pinch myself every time I’m at the boatyard whether I’m working on her, sailing her or just plain enjoying her. That’s why I love working on her teak and spending more money on her then is rationale.

The community of CDers is also sort of a dream come true. Just yesterday I was on Steve Laume’s CD 30 admiring all of his handiwork.

Dick

[winthrop fisher]

Hey Boyd... no not crazy at all. when i was little i had allot of dreams on ships and beaning on board. and at the time we did not have TV at all.... that sounds strang to say.... winthrop

Hi Winthrop:

I have no idea other than I am inexplicably drawn to the water. Its such a deep feeling I cannot tell where it comes from. When I am on the water I am at peace like no other place.

The few time I have been on one of the old wood sailing ships its like I know I have been there before...

Crazy huh?

Boyd
s/v Tern
CD30 MkII
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

[winthrop fisher]

keep it coming, i am enjoying it.....winthrop

[Al Levesque]

I grew up in Salem, just up the street from the harbor. There was always a boat to help scrape and paint and then bail and later to borrow. Someone always needed a crew. Later we had our own family boats, starting small and growing. Most of our neighbors owned a boat before they owned a house. I was constantly exposed to boating until I married and started a family. When the family and job stabilized it was natural to get back into boating, and eventually to move back close to the harbor. I can look out the kitchen window and see our boat swinging at its mooring, or look to the left and see the workingman's yacht club that I grew up with and have no doubt that boating is and always was part of my life.

Our neighboring town of Marblehead always helped by adding some glamour and increasing the emphasis on sail. The racing activity spread over to us somewhat, at least enough to hook many of us on sail. Now I am working on hooking grandchildren into boating and sail.

[ronkberg]

Hi Winthrop, although there is no boating background in my family, I have always loved to be out in the elements. I snow skied in New England for years and always gravitated to the water during the summers. First boat was a Hobie 16 which my wife ( a non-swimmer) and my two children sailed in Maine for several years during the mid 80's.....what a hoot that was! Now I have progressed through a few mono-hulls and have a Typhoon that will allow me to commune with Mother Nature and feel proud to move along at her pace along the Maine coast. Best time of the day is when I can shut down the iron jib and let the wind move me across the water.

Ron

[Steve K.]

I have been lurking around this board for several years. Hopefully I will have a CD of my own someday. I didn't sail until I was 30. I went out for a weekend with some guys on a Catalina 34 in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior. I remember being fascinated with the boat. We motored out from the marina, put up the sails and then shut off the motor. I loved the sound (or lack of it). I've been obsessed ever since. Interestingly, I recalled later that when I was 5 my grandmother made a quilt for me and asked if I wanted something on it, a truck or car or some animal. I ask for a sailboat! I guess it was meant to be.

Steve King
Always looking for a ride

[Tom in Cambria]

My mother thinks that it's because when I was a little baby they were living in Chicago near Lake Michigan during the depression. They didn't have the money to go to a movie or any pastime like that so they would take the baby down to the shore of the lake and watch the boats go back and forth. They would point at a boat and say to the baby (me) Oh, look a boat, Tommy.

I don't remember any of that but when I was an undergraduate at the University of California in Berkeley (right on San Francisco Bay) in the 50s, new students were required to sign up for "activities" as they thought in those days that it was important to be a well rounded person and not just a bookworm. There was a list of clubs that one could choose to join to fulfill that requirement. Hiking, Chess, etc. One of the choices was the "Yacht Club". I pictured myself in a blue blazer smoking a pipe and holding a martini and signed up for that.

The "yachts" turned out to be International 14s and 110s which in those days were the boats sailed at the Olympics, and really more like dinghies than what one would think of as a "yacht." I guess we hoped to get good enough to go to the Olympics for the U.S.A. and represent our country. That never happened, but I did learn to love sailing. It's hard to imagine today that we used to sail over to San Francisco, buy a fresh cooked crab on Fisherman's Wharf and a loaf of sourdough bread and then sail back across the bay in the afternoon blow surfing off the tops of the waves and planing most of the way down the huge swells (often with spinnakers up) in those open dinghies with no flotation and we'd have to crowd to the stern to keep the bow from submarining. I guess it's a wonder that no one ever got killed at least while I was there. I don't suppose you'd even be permitted to try that today.

[nikon4004]

Check the archives and look for my posting called Hooked

Kind of says it all


Steve
Boatless in Ohio, but not for long!

[Domenic]

I had a 13' MFG Pintail as a small boy. It was against my parents wishes. Because, my family is Trawler people. As a baby, my parents had an Owens, 27' . Then in 1969 my Father baught a 33' Grand Banks. And 1980 they baught a 43' Marine Trader. I remember my Mother using a bucket on about 60' of line off the stern as a Drouge. Trawlers hate following Seas.

[Mike Wainfeld]

I grew up in Brooklyn, and my Dad had a small Cabin cruiser-a Luhrs 25 if I remember. We went fishing a lot, and we took the CG Auxiliary Course together. As a teenager he let me take the boat out myself-which led to many adventures with my buddies. I remember going Tuna fishing one time with two brothers from up the block whose father ran a party boat. The flybridge had no insrtuments, and there was a little port in the floor so you could see the dials at the inside helm. I was up on the flybridge alone, driving through this really rough chop, miles from shore, getting soaked, with all the guys in the cabin making faces through that little port. Another time we went for Mackerel with these multiple hook jigs. Every time you put the line in you pulled up 5 fish! We had George up on the bow sliding the fish down the gunwales. Sal was totally seasick in the V-berth-we were yelling Sal, you gotta come up and check this out! So he came up, we stuck a rod in his hands, he pulled up 5 fish, and then promptly barfed. We had bags and bags of fish. On the way home we passed Kings Plaza (a local mall) and were throwing mackerel at the folks at the bus stop. Such terrible behavior!
In my second life, I had a friend who was a sailor, and I thought, "This looks pretty cool". I found an old, abandoned O'Day widgeon, cleaned her up, got new sails, read a few learn to sail books, and launched her atthe ramp. The first time I trimmed that main in and felt the boat all of a sudden, magically moving, was amazing. All you folks know that feeling very well. Thats all it took!

[jambalaya]

Well, I don't know why I got started. Right now, at the age of three-score and ten, I can't remember, except now I can't imagine not sailing. I once had a power boat, way back when. It just didn't seem to have any function except to get from here to there. There was never any fun in the trip.
My boat, Jambalaya, has been laid up since Hurricane Francis two years ago. The long pole in the tent was the new engine which wasn't related to the hurricane. But for a lot of reasons, it took a long time to get it installed. Now its installed, running great and I took the boat out and raised the sails this past weekend for the first time since Francis. It had been so long since I last sailed that I had almost forgot how: or why? But let me tell you that when I got the main hoisted and unfurled the jib, and turned the engine off, I remembered why. It was a gorgeous day on Tampa Bay, with the wind about 10 knots, mostly west. So I was on a beam reach and I thought, "Well, life is good!" I sailed out there for about 3 hours, sort of on a shake-down cruise. But really, it was like coming home.
And that's why I sail.
Will
Jambalaya
CD 30

[Gary M]

I wanted a boat, parents said no.

Parents got a boat, I had a job.

I left home and bought a canoe.

I made more money and bought a 18 foot plywood cabin cruiser.

I started a business, sold the boat.

I got a real job and couldn't afford a boat.

I found a Rhodes 19 in the parking lot of a yacht club and bought it.

I read a picture book on sailing and used the club hoist to launch.

I had the day of my life.

Rhodes 19, CD Typhoon, Columbia 26, Cal 20, Rawson PH, CD22.

I'm still loving it.

When I pushed my 19 away from the dock, and it moved on it's own, it was just me, the boat, and the available wind, something magical happened.

Gary