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What was your moment?

2K views 17 replies 17 participants last post by  ShoalFinder 
#1 ·
I had always loved the water.
Canoe camping
Little Beach Cats
Ski boats with my boys in high school etc.
Fishing in LI Sound with Dad.


But Sailing? Real Ocean Sailing? Not so much.

Junior year we had a trip we could sign up for.
One of those 4-5 day summer Schooner deals.

Day 2 the Captian answered all my annoying questions then said "Come here"

So I did. He explained what to do with the huge wheel and call the crew to tack.

We went from listing one way to the other.
The sound of the Masts creaking
The Manila rigging coming tight.
The Canvas Snapped.
I did it. I was a Greek Hero.I found Nirvana.
The Sound of the water rushing past the hull.
The wind in the sails of a 125 ft vessel.
The Weight of the Sun on my Face.

I dream of this at Night.
I can hear the sound in my head right now.
That was the Moment for me.
 
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#2 ·
Sailing into La Coruna past the Tower of Hercules the 1800 year old lighthouse that marks the entrance. I was on my first big boat, at the start of a 7 year cruise, it was my first ever multi day passage and the first time I had used my sextant for real.

The feeling of following in the wake of all those mariners who had gone before and made the same landfall was pretty overwhelming.
 
#3 ·
Quite a bit less dramatic, but a buddy of mine and I rigged a (new to him) Hobby 14, pushed it off the beach (me on the trampoline, he still standing on the beach) and said to me, "you're sailing, dude!". I'd never been on a sailboat before, and it was another 25 years before it would happen again. Little did I know that I was already hooked!
 
#4 ·
Wing and wing from Marco Island to Fort Jefferson on a cloudless night. I looked up and was taken back at how many stars I could see. It was if someone had taken a brush, dip it into a bucket of stars and painted the night sky.
 
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#5 ·
Standing on the bridge wing of the US Tarawa in a mid-Pacific storm. The spray from the breaking waves soaking me.
Seawater streaming down my face. The hook was set.
 
#6 ·
I had just finished restoring my first boat, a Lightning, and was catching a lift across the harbor on a friends Santana 23 to the launch so I could splash my boat.

I had been enamoured with boats even as a child but had never sailed. We cast off from the dock under main and jib on a beautifull fall day in Marina Del Rey. The skipper turned off, the sails gently set and the rush I felt as the boat began to effortlessly slide across the water was like a drug. I have been chasing that first high for over 20 years now.

I've had lots of memorable moments since but that was the one that started it for me.
 
#7 ·
Been sailing far too long to remember the first moment.. maybe it was kicking my younger brother out of the Sabot not 50 yards from the finish line (he never did crew for me again)... but whatever it was, growing up in the Whitsundays must have helped there somewhere. ;)
 
#9 ·
My first time sailing out of Dana Point when I was about six or seven. I had never been on a boat and it was typical California winter conditions. My cousin was egging me on not to throw up...so, naturally I did for the rest of the day. When we got back into the harbor I was dehydrated, exhausted, and hated sailing. That's when I realized that if something was that discriminating, it was worth conquering. Now here I am 25 years later with my own boat and ready to circumnavigate South America.
 
#10 ·
The sailing but i had since a little kid seeing the boats pass always love the sailboats. What really moment that makes me love sailing even more is every time i take out my new to me 27' boat and either go further then i have before, do something diffrent like wing on wing, or even have the boat heel over more then i have before. Those moments make me love sailing and the sailing lifestyle. i'm only 16 but i think im already hooked on the sailing life style
 
#11 ·
For sailing? I remember that like it was yesterday, althought it was about 30 years ago.

I was 8 or 9 years old, camping at Lake Gaston in North Carolina. My best friend and I were swimming right off the shore and an older gentleman not far away was rigging up a sailboat. I was fascinated and went over to ask if I could look at it. I guess I asked too many questions and the gentleman gave me a smile and said he'd take me for a ride if it was okay with my parents. I never ran to get permission so fast in my life.

He took both my friend and I out on it. I know now that it was a Sunfish (or something very similar). Just a basic little sailboat. I remember everything about it. The feeling of sailing, the wind, the color of the sail, the sound of the water rushing across the hull.

The whole ride was probably twenty minutes across the lake and back. I think I smiled for a week.

I never forgot it. I have spent my life on the water, spent six of those years crossing oceans in the Navy. Now, thirty years after that kind old man took me sailing, I finally got into sailing myself. And that same feeling came back from when I was nine years old.
 
#13 ·
Happened late May 50 years ago. Four of us were on a 37-foot ketch crossing the stream on our way to Bermuda. Twas the perfect day blue skies moderate wind, even the stream was behaving. We were making maybe 5-6 knots. I'd just come up on deck to take the noon sights when Joey, sitting in the cockpit, took out his harmonica and played 'Shenandoah'. Twas like someone had scripted the perfect sailing scene.
 
#14 · (Edited)
Growing up in a desert - watching the America's Cup and Hobies bashing around the beach in commercials on television.

I figured I had to get in on some that someday. It was beautiful.

It finally happened a few years ago. It was far easier to get into than I ever thought it would be when we went on our very first sail with a day-charter skipper. He showed us a few things.

I now do ocean races and have a beach-cat. It's everything I dreamed it would be as a kid in the desert.
 
#15 · (Edited)
1978, leaving Angelfish Creek in north Key Largo at midnight with my Grandfather on his 28 foot sloop. We where heading to Bimini and beyond. My parents were getting a divorce and I would be with him indefinantly. The first ocean swell gave me butterfly's in my stomach like a roller coaster, he told me to take the tiller so he could go below but my 8 year old muscles could'nt handle the weather helm and we swung fast in to the wind. I locked my legs and pulled it back on course with all my might, up over another swell and I held fast. That was it.... I sail out of Angelfish creek at midnight every once in a while to relive that moment ( on the very same 28 foot sloop), the creek still has the same magical feel about it.
 
#17 ·
My story is less dramatic than those above, and very much more recent. It was not much more than a year ago that a not-very-close friend emailed me that I should go sailing with him. As I did not know him well, and his boat may well have been a piece of crap, I sort of suggested sure, we'll go sailing someday. He responded with no, we're going sailing Saturday. Okay I said, Saturday it is. I showed up and he had (has) a lovely boat, and I was impressed by the complexity of all the systems. There were so many ropes and "pulleys" all over the place, I found it rather daunting. We set out, I helped with pulling some lines and such, which was fun. Once we got out of the harbour, and the sails went up, and filled with air with a big whump, it was kind of breathtaking. I kind of "got it" from that very moment.

I sailed with that friend for the rest of last summer, and by Labour Day had acquired my own boat, utterly smitten with sailing and the lifestyle.

Living on the shore of a great inland freshwater sea has its advantages.
 
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