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How did you get your start in sailing!

  • No formal instruction, just bought a boat and went for it

    Votes: 126 31.6%
  • No formal instruction, grew up sailing with family/friends

    Votes: 101 25.3%
  • No formal instruction, sailed with friends/family as an adult

    Votes: 54 13.5%
  • Formal instruction, US Sailing

    Votes: 22 5.5%
  • Formal instruction, ASA

    Votes: 52 13.0%
  • Military service lead to sailing

    Votes: 19 4.8%
  • Just crewed around randomly

    Votes: 8 2.0%
  • The boom hit my head on an accidental gybe, I can't remember

    Votes: 9 2.3%
  • Got in through racing for the most part

    Votes: 12 3.0%

How did you get your start in sailing?

31K views 146 replies 122 participants last post by  aprilsails 
#1 ·
How'd you get your start in sailing :) I'll add a poll with hopefully enough choices to get everyone!
 
#2 ·
i started going on wednesday night races with my father & uncle when i was about 7 or 8. i enjoyed the sailing but really used to go for the box of cracker jacks my uncle always kept on the boat. my uncle sold the boat when i was ten and since then have only been out on other peoples boat a handful of times. last year i chartered a 54' hinckley for our 10th anniversary, got the sailing bug again and 2 months later bought our first boat.
 
#3 ·
Nearly fifty years ago as a newly minted ensign in the Navy I was stationed in Great Lakes, IL as skipper of an LMD (Large Mahogany Desk). Special Services (Recreation) had an active sailing program with a dozen Interlake 18' and a old Alden Malabar 48' ketch. Over the two summers I was stationed there I sailed nearly every day. When I got back to NY I was an experienced crew (and a bachelor) so I was able to gets lots of berths on big races. Been doing it ever since, though now on my own boat and cruising rather than racing.
 
#6 ·
Family, Boy Scouts

  • Took sailing at scout camp one summer
  • Dad had a Laser sailboat which I sailed around Mendon Ponds Park in Pittsford, NY
  • Taught sailing a few summers later at Scout Camp
  • Dad had a 22' Catalina for a while
  • Finally bought my first boat at 42 years old - Pearson 10M
  • Have had it less than a full year and already have 3 foot itis.

DrB
 
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Reactions: awahl
#7 ·
I bought a Super Porpoise board boat 35 years ago, while on vacation in Florida, and learned by doing. The next year, I took a beginning course and cruising course at Annapolis Sailing School in St. Petersburg, Fla. I raced, cruised and moved up in size a couple of times until I retired, and bought a C&C 35 Landfall. Life is good!
 
#10 ·
I'd have to check multiple boxes on the poll.

Went out once with a friend in late September.
Bought a boat 3 weeks later - sailed the boat all that winter.
Annapolis Sailing School 3 day class in May, The total time on the water did not equal the time I already had.
Bought bigger / newer boat in June, sailed it 4 years with a couple BVI bareboat catamaran charters thrown in.
Bought Catamaran in May last year.

Mostly - self taught, taught by friends :)
 
#12 ·
It's cool to see all the people that just bought a boat and went for it. My friend and I recently bought a boat and were planning on just going for it also. Lessons around here are a bit too expensive for us. It's good to know that it is possible to do.
 
#15 ·
I started sailing in the 50's with my parents, by my teens I was crewing on my dad's old Hinckley B40 with he and his friends on long trips and races - Marion to Hamilton was my favorite. I didn't have or need my own boat until the late 70's when I bought a Columbia 28.
 
#17 ·
Well, I first learned at summer camp about 30 years ago. Then spent time racing and sailing as a teenager. Sailed as a member of the OPBYC for many years. Decided I wanted to buy a boat about six years ago, and bought one two years ago... Took a sailing course to get ASA certified in case I wanted to charter two years ago. :) Mostly, self-taught.
 
#21 ·
Nope..... not everyone :rolleyes: I had rescued/re-furbished my father's 14' wood and canvas canoe, got sick of paddling, ordered a sail kit from Old Town canoe factory in Maine, and built my own sailboat. Before returning it to a normal canoe again I set up a main and jib, and all lines led aft to me in the rear of the 2 thickly padded seats on the floor. In the last iteration of my few years of experimentation I had gone from 'gig' type rope steering with a reverse jam cleat system brake to wheel steering with a Tiller Tamer as a brake for the rope steering. Also went through a couple lee board designs and eventually set up a couple of retractable amas actually making it a Trimaran - So there SD..... I had a Trimaran waaayy...... before you :D And no.... no formal instruction, no internet, and sail mags were few and far between out in the woods of North Brookfield - Just Figure it Out - sometimes after a few tries :D
 
#22 · (Edited)
Dad got a boat. I remember taking it on the Sacramento Delta. My big sister had the tiller. Dad told her to steer the boat away from the shore. She said she was. Dad looked down the transom and told the kids to get below. The rudder had broken off at the water line and the shore was jagged boulders! Fishermen on the bolders helped hold us off and we made it home safely. I think I was about ten.

That is my only sailing memory, but mom and dad have stories of me almost falling off the boat and being terrified if the boat heeled at all. We spent a lot of time waterskiing with mom and dad and five of us kids.

Dad still had the sail-boat and was talking about giving it to a neighbor a couple of years ago. I quickly corrected that thought, and brought the boat to Utah.

Before I was able to get the boat out here, my father in law was talking about getting rid of a Super Snark. So while I was arranging transportation for the Venture, I played with the Snark, and went sailing with a local club on some Lido's and a Catalina.

When I got the boat here I was able to take her out a few times before deciding that the swollen swing keel absolutely has to be fixed.

So I now have a boat and I am still going for it, learning little by little.


Merlin--I wonder how many would check the option for still dreaming?
 
#23 ·
I was crew on a Fisheries Patrol boat the summer I was 16 yrs old. The government contracted individuals to do fish counts on significant streams, and a fellow was hired to tend one of these streams (in Kynoch inlet)

He arrived in Bella Bella and I was elected to guide him there (about 50 nm). We left under power and after a while the engine overheated and we "had" to sail... I found it very pleasant. Don't remember the boat exactly but it was around 36 feet, woody classic S&Sish from the 50s or 60s IIRC.

Later moved to the interior for a short time and sailed a couple of times with a friend on a nearby lake, on a Davidson 18 (small Cal 20), I thought that was cool too, but with really nowhere to go, and I knew the coast would offer more.

Moved to the coast and immediately bought our first boat, a 24' Shark. Great starter, we were mostly self taught after our friend from the lakes came to help us sail her home on day one. It blew close to 20k everyday in the area where we lived, so the curve was pretty steep.

One unfortunately unpleasant and ill advised "offshore" jaunt Victoria to California in 1986 proved how much we had yet to learn. (on someone elses boat)

From 24' to 28' in first year, to 40' ten years later, and back to 35' twelve years after that and here we are.
 
#24 ·
Sailed once with my cousin on a lake up in Alaska. My instruction was "let the sails out until they luff, then pull them in a little". It was enough to keep the boat moving.

'85, my parents got a 26' sloop and I got a job on the water as a fisheries patrol officer. I loved being on the water. Sailed with mom and dad a couple of times and we got out own trailer sailor that year with two little kids. Moved up to a 25 footer a little bit later, then a 28 footer. When the kids moved out, got a 34 footer and started planning our cruising retirement. That resulted in the 41 foot Fraser that is pretty popular up in Faster's neighborhood. Our daughter and her husband have a boat now and want to start cruising local waters with us and the grand-daughter. The trend continues.
 
#25 ·
Always intrigued with sailing, I found a Sunfish in the Classifieds back in 1992 for $600. no internet then. bought a book called "learn to Sail in a weekend", read it front to back and went for it. sailed the sunfish everywhere around the lake. then bought the venture back in 1993. the guy i bought it from was a co-worker and sailed with me on numerous occasions and showed me the the finer points of sailing, if only i could remember them:D.
 
#26 ·
Sailed board boats a bit as a kid. Then life got in the way. Wasn't till I moved back to Indiana, the summer after my Mom died (2002) that I bought my first boat, a Mirage 5.5, to see if I still enjoyed sailing. I did, so by the end of summer I had a Hunter 26 that was big enough to give me a taste of living aboard. Took early retirement in 2006, bought Aria in April, and haven't spent a night off of her since.
 
#28 ·
Give a kid a boat with a sail and he'll figure everything out soon enough.
 
#30 ·
Right on Plumper. I was about 11 I think when I went out on a small lake in a Sunflower which was a styrofoam contraption making a Sunfish look like a Club Swan 42. Those 2 hours more than 35 years ago did it for me.

Her's a link to a picture of a Sunflower... I can't believe they are still made!
CastleCraft Sunflower Sailboat | Snark Sunflower 3.3 Sailboats
 
#34 ·
As a kid I was always building rafts out of logs lashed together, then made one out of 55 gal. drums lashed together, anything to be on the water. My dad bought a 20' Vivacity sailboat (twin keel) when I was about 16 and I learned to sail it on Lake Washington (Seattle). First trip without Dad was at 17 out the locks to Puget Sound headed for the San Juans with two of my friends. I think we got to Kingston (less than 10 miles) before we had to turn around because I had no knowledge of currents and tides and the wind was right on our nose. But I was hooked, I realised that I could theoretically go ANYWHERE in a boat! My first sailboat was an 8' sailing pram that my wife secretly saved up for and bought me when our first born was just a baby. Have had several sailboats since then co-owned with my brother. Now we have a 40' pilothouse that we hope to spend several months a year on. Our younger son is about to make an offer on his first sailboat and hopes to take off across the Pacific for a few years with his new wife.

John
 
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