Question to ever one on sailing

[winthrop fisher]

Hi ever one.

question on why you got in to sailing or boating ???

this question was ask to me the other day and the only thing i could tell him was.

i have all was been around boats in this like time.
i did dream about boats and ships when i was a little kid.

but i did sit behind a desk for around 15 years doing accounting and drafting, but i have all was sailed ever where i could.

how and why did you get in to boating ????

thanks
winthrop

[Cap'n Mike]

By schooling, I am an aerospace engineer, so sailing allows me to deal with aerodynamics.

My wife loves to camp.

Both of us love to travel.

So....

We got into sailing so I could play with aerodynamics, and we could have a floating pop-up trailer that will take us places...together!

[Carl Thunberg]

For me, it was when I was 8 years old. My dad picked up this little dinghy at a yard sale. He had no idea how to use it, but the price was right. It was way too small for an adult and my dad struggled with it. But it was the perfect size for a kid and I was instantly hooked. Within a couple hours I was hiked out over the gunwales having the time of my life. 35 years later, I'm still that little kid.

[Neil Gordon]

... how and why did you get in to boating ????

Ever sit on a beach, look at the horizon and wonder what's on the other side?

[Boyd]

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.

[Didereaux]

Oh that one is the easiest of all questions for me...when you grow up on the Great Plains you quickly realize that waving miles and miles of wheat are exactly the same as miles and miles of ocean. But water isn't as hard and it don't make you sneeze and wheeze!
;)

[Ed Haley]

After college, we (10 bachelors) had a camp on the Canada side of Lake Erie. You could only stay in the group if you remained single. Once you were married, you had to move on. One of my buddies had an old Lightning and put out a notice for a sailboat race that was for boats older than 20 years, with two couples aboard and a requirement that they had to carry a case of beer aboard to race.

On the morning of the race, we had 12 boats registered and we were waiting for the thermals to get going. Meanwhile, we had an old wringer washing machine with the tub filled with Bloody Marys and lots of ice. By noon, there was still no wind but the tub on that old washing machine was still half full.

Finally, around 4:30 in the afternoon the wind finally came up and a friend and I went out to set up the course. Everyone jumped aboard the boats and headed out to the starting line, including me in that old lightning, Mischievous. This was my first sail. After the starting gun, we all headed up to the windward mark and instead of rounding the mark, every boat in the race just headed out a little further and all rafted up for what turned out to be a great party.

It was then I figured out that sailing was a good way to have fun in your life.

[Warren Kaplan]

I always loved the look of sailboats but I never had any chance as a kid because my father would get seasick if he even saw a rowboat!

Around 1967 I started dating a girl whose father had a Tartan 27...a cutting edge design back then. He had 3 daughters who liked to sunbath on the boat and he asked me along perhaps to get some "male interest" when out on Long Island Sound.

20 minutes after we set sail into Manhasset Bay I was hooked. I loved it. I sailed with him once or twice more. The next year his daughter and I became engaged. With that he promptly sold the boat!!! He dangled a big bait and he sure reeled me in. After I was firmly hooked he got rid of the bait!

We got married in 19 and 69 and I got my first boat (a sea sprite 23) in 1972. Well....its 37 years since I was married and I'm still very happily married to the same girl. We both love sailing and unfortunately we just can't do enough of it.

So..."blame" it all on my late father-in-law. I thank him everyday for a lot of happiness in my life!

[Scott MacCready]

The company I used to work for sent me to NC and housed me in a condo overlooking their Marina for 6 months. I'd walk the docks looking at the sailboats; some very large, but the two that caught my eye were a Flicka and and pretty Cape Dory 26. At the time I didn't even know what it was. I took a sailing course and was hooked. Bought a CD25 and the rest is history. Growing up I never even liked the ocean; all that sticky salt! Funny how life can turn 180 degrees.

[Domenic]

My Mom and Dad brought me down the marina three days old. Its a lifestyle. lifetime commitment.

[Ray Garcia]

I think a majority of us would say we learned how to sail/powerboat from our dad. My dad had a power boat for few years in my early teens. My 2 other brothers and I spent some very memorable times fishing and swimming. I think my dads favorite time was spent taking his sons fishing. Spending a day fishing with our dad was priceless.

My father knows nothing about a sailboat but he is a true fisherman in every sense of the word. His idea of boating was fishing. We would go fishing no matter what the weather, if he wanted to go, we went. My uncle recounted a story of them fishing on a charter boat where everyone was getting seasick; there was my father enjoying his egg salad sandwich on the bow relishing in the spray.

One day I tried sailing a sunfish on a whim; 27 years later I am on my 3rd sailboat and my dad still asks me if he can fish on my sailboat. I know he is kidding me, but deep down I think he just wants to go fishing.

I think my dad loved the freedom and independence of boating; and fishing. Probably that is what keeps me still boating, the independence. I go where the wind blows and how I set my sails. If you really think about it sailing is pure freedom. There are rules but no lanes to follow, no bridge tolls to pay, no stoplights, no pressure to get somewhere fast, and if you like to sail at night like I do, no traffic. Just you the boat and the water. If you have someone else to share it with like I do, it is even that much better.

[Carter Brey]

...and yes, it was my father who played the role of enabler.

We sailed Long Island Sound out of Norwalk when I was a little boy, first in a Celebrity 19, then in a fantastically lovely wooden Danish sloop about 22 feet LOA.

The Celebrity had a hull made of mahogany strip planking and leaked like a sieve; the Danish boat was built stoutly of oak and had the low freeboard and long overhangs of a Folkboat, but with an open cockpit. . Both boats had wooden spars, by the way.

Those boats instilled in me not only a passion for being on the water under sail, but an appreciation for classic boats and ships as art objects that embodied function as form like nothing else.

I vividly remember sitting in my 6th grade class, circa 1965-66, after my first visit to the Mystic Seaport Museum. Miss Pyde caught me wool-gathering as I drew the Charles W. Morgan under full canvas in my math notebook.

I don't recall Dad giving me anything resembling lessons in the formal sense, but I emerged from childhood with a feel for sailboat handling that was entirely unselfconscious. I would routinely sail up to docks in engineless boats without a care in the world. It was after taking lessons to "brush up" as an adult that I got nervous about such things!

Thanks for the question, Winthrop. Interesting replies.

[Bill Cochrane]

...or something very close to that. Like Boyd, I am drawn to the water, and can't remember a time when I wasn't. Swimming, boating, scuba diving, relaxing on a beach, looking at the waves, the habitat found in a tide pool...sailing is a natural extension of all those. The quiet of ghosting along on a summer's afternoon, or pounding to weather feeling the power in wind and wave. And always the draw of the salt water that reminds us of our origin in the long-forgotten oceans of millennia past.

Besides, it's fun.

[Joe Myerson]

Since I was 3 years old, my family has spent summers on Buzzards Bay, where I grew up in the water as much as on it. I've always loved the sight, smell and feel of the ocean and been fascinated by its creatures, its moods and the craft that move upon it.

But I found my element when I was 11 years old. That's when my father bought an old Beetle Swan, the earliest known production fiberglass sailboat. My Dad, a Navy man in WWII, had never sailed, but two of his law partners were nationally ranked 210 racers, and they persuaded him that sailing was something every son should learn.

So, he came home with this strange looking 12-foot marconi-rigged catboat. A neighbor gave him one "lesson," and a few days later Dad capsized while doing a flying gybe. I watched it all from shore, decided that I couldn't do any worse, and soon started sailing on my own.

Now, 47 years and five boats later, I'm still sailing whenever and wherever I can. Dad, who turns 86 this year, has stayed off the water since his two hip replacements. Interestingly enough, he only recently told me that he suffered from seasickness almost every time he climbed aboard a small boat. We spent many hours together over many years, on a number of different boats--and he never once mentioned his discomfort.

If I had children, would I have done the same for them?

--Joe

[chase]

Hi Winthrop,

I started sailing when I once saw a couple sail in from the Exuma Sound, drop anchor, and zip off in their dinghy to explore. I was solo sea kayaking and was absolutely fascinated by their whole program. I was also lonely and watching them through bonocs was like a visit. Their craft seemed so seaworthy and of course I envisioned they had ice on board and did not have to contend with the damn sand flies. I had never even thought about sailing before that day.

Three years later I'm sailing a Cape Dory 30, mostly November-February and I can't get enough. The world is like a whole new place with this new mode of travel.

I definitely got drawn in because it is a practical way to travel and explore, but along the way I've come to love the art of sailing (such as it is aboard my farmer-skippered craft) and all things nautical.

Cheers,

Chase