Can you remember the first sail you ever had and what in

[grandpaboat]

Early 60's, Cadet dinghy, schools sailing camp on Chasewater in the Midlands. Totally hooked, used to go back to the camp evenings and weekends to help out and get a sail. Progressed to teaching other kids to sail at adventure camp in Wales and CCPR centre on Windermere whenever possible. First cruiser was chartered from the Navy in Gosport with skipper Davey Jones (honestly). Took until I was 29 before I could buy our first Vivacity 20 cruising boat.

My father shifted to a mooring off Storrs Hall on Windermere in the mid 60s and became very friendly with those running the CCPR. I kindly had the use of a School GP14 which is how I began to learn my sailing skills and continue learning to this day.

 

[oz-1]

1969, sailed on an Albacore. Joined club (Dolphin club) on Drakes island.

 

[HinewaisMan]

My first sail was when I was maybe 6 in a ubiquitous Mirror dinghy that a friend’s father, John Smith, had spent a year building in his garage. It was on some gravel pit in Hertfordshire. Can’t remember anything about it except the sails were red.

But my first real sailing was with an old retired Civil Servant called Les Garrett in his GP14.

Mr Garrett (never Les) must have been well into his 70’s, had been in the MN during the war, and was the neighbour who could turn his hand to anything. His garage was an Aladdin’s cave to me at about 10 years old, the tools placed in their right places, strange machines under brown covers, that smell of oil and wood shavings, and I remember shelving packed tight with old tobacco tins full of screws and nuts and bolts and those little bits and bobs that you think you might need one day.

For a glorious Summer, pretty much every weekend he’d hitch up the trailer to his black Wolseley 1500 and load up the car. I can remember being fascinated by the little compass ball on his dashboard. Then we’d head off somewhere to sail, be it lakes or rivers or estuaries, camping over night wherever we ended up.

It was with Mr Garrett I first learned how to use tools, to look after them, to make and fix things. Skills that have held me good stead over the years with my nomadic sailing life.

But more so, that early sailing wasn’t just sailing round a lake aimlessly, it was always sailing somewhere, a journey, it had a purpose. Oh, I’ve done a fair bit of racing over the years, but cruising has always been my first love.

Sadly, I wonder nowadays how many parents would let their young sons go away for a weekend with the old chap down the road. They must miss out on so much.

So Thank You, Mr Garrett. I wish you were still with us so I could take you out for a sail on Hinewai and regale you with some of my tales of the sea as you used to with me by those camp fires. You planted that seed of wanderlust in me, and for that I will always be grateful.

 

[Refueler]

"HinewaisMan" touching a point that I think is relevant today.

Todays society maybe more 'liberal' but its more protective and literally prevents such early learning. We are well aware there are some unsavory characters out there - but there are many more like the Mr. Garret - but sadly don't get the enjoyment of passing on to younger generation their skills.
Imagine a GP14 today ... old guy ... young boy .... sailing a lake or river ... stopping on a shore and pitching a tent ... Todays society has many that would immediately jump to wrong conclusion.

The Swallows and Amazon's life is sadly well behind us ....

 

[webcraft]

The river class cruiser 'Pirate', owned by my Grandfather and regularly sailed by my parents in their youth, latterly with me as crew.

I was allegedly conceived on this boat. She is well over 100 years old now.

- W

The

 

[Wansworth]

The river class cruiser 'Pirate', owned by my Grandfather and regularly sailed by my parents in their youth, latterly with me as crew.

I was allegedly conceived on this boat. She is well over 100 years old now.

- W

The

A boat to prostrate one self!

 

[Quandary]

The river class cruiser 'Pirate', owned by my Grandfather and regularly sailed by my parents in their youth, latterly with me as crew.

I was allegedly conceived on this boat. She is well over 100 years old now.

- W

The

Been rocking the boat ever since Webby?

 

[scottie]

Don’t remember it much as it was either very late 40s or early 50s aged 2or 3 in a nappy

Earliest memory is waking up standing at the toe rail (she had an offset fore hatch) having a leak late at night

BEROE is a gaff cutter of carvel construction, built of pitch pine on grown oak and steamed oak intermediates. She was built by Jardines on the Isle of Bute in 1887 to an original design by G L Watson of Glasgow and was commissioned by the Collins family (publishers) for racing on the Scottish Lochs. New standing & running rigging and a Lister/Petter Alpha 3 engine were installed by the current owner and an interior refit
http://https://r.search.yahoo.com/_...ter-1887/RK=2/RS=oWKua0WfvumM5WkMLt03ePC4BVs-

 

[Kukri]

I don’t have what I might call joined up memories of my father’s ex-RNLI lifeboat when I was very small, just a few mental pictures. She seemed huge, because when I was three I was very small!

I do have a clear and distinct memory of being taken sailing by my father in Tripoli harbour in an RNSA 14 when I was seven. By that time I had been given “Swallows and Amazons” for my birthday, so I understood what was going on very well. I was addicted from that day, sixty years ago.

 

[Wansworth]

All that comes to mind,must have been late1950s a holiday in Devon ,having towed the “Dora” 15 foot lugsail day oat to Dittisham it rained as usual in Devon and father managed to stove in a plank,quite thin carvelplanking so we sheltered under overhanging trees having a picnic,after that holiday the boat was laid up in the front garden until the mid 1960s when father set to and changed the rig to a Bermuda an sloop using the original bamboo mast and doing away with the iron bowsprit.It stayed that way till I wreaked it on the harbour training wall at Littlehampton,she never really recovered and my inexperienced boatbuilding skills prolonged her life till 1967

 

[chrishscorp]

1990 I was 22 went out to Corfu to rebuild a timbered waterfront for a hotel just before the start of the season, it had been destroyed in the winter storms. Anyway on one of the days off i had, the watersports manager Dave said he would charter a yacht in Corfu town for the day £25 split between the 5 of us, bargain. Took a lunch with us and some wine, sorry I have no idea what we sailed it was white and had sails. Dave was a little concerned as it was gusting a good 6 no one else had sailed before, I loved it, heeled at a steep angle water washing the side decks big blue sky, it was great fun.

Several years later Brother in Law took us out on his Stuart Turner Twister and on one or two bigger boats he had chartered, we went as a group lots of fun and good memories.

A friend then gave us a Skipper 14 in which I learnt to sail as best you can in a Skipper, I was then told to go and get a proper family dinghy so came back with a Scorpion the wife having sailed it then promptly bought a Wayfarer had a lot of fun with both of those and now a Centaur which has allowed us to go cross channel and explore some of the West Country

 

[Adrian62]

A mirror dingy back in 1975, A school friend took me out for the day a trip down to the coast At whitstable Kent with the dingy striped on the roof . A great day out and hooked ever since .

 

[myquest]

My first passage on a boat was the fortnightly mail boat from Mallaig to the island we lived on but my first sail was on the craft pictured in my avatar. I had started reading the Swallows and Amazons books aged 7 and set about the task of emulating their adventures. My main memory of the hull is that buoyancy was provided by sacks filled with empty Cinzano bottles (my parents tipple at time!) held together with driftwood. In order to get the picture I had to sail it out into the loch, anchor it fore and aft to keep the sail set and swim ashore to take the picture on my box Brownie.

 

[Stemar]

"HinewaisMan" touching a point that I think is relevant today.

Todays society maybe more 'liberal' but its more protective and literally prevents such early learning. We are well aware there are some unsavory characters out there - but there are many more like the Mr. Garret - but sadly don't get the enjoyment of passing on to younger generation their skills.
Imagine a GP14 today ... old guy ... young boy .... sailing a lake or river ... stopping on a shore and pitching a tent ... Todays society has many that would immediately jump to wrong conclusion.

The Swallows and Amazon's life is sadly well behind us ....

My kids are grown up now, but I would certainly have allowed them to go. I'd also encourage grandkids, subject to some discreet enquiries in both cases. Yes there are pervs around, but no more than there were back in the '40s. '50s & '60s, and we're more aware of them now. Taking a neighbour's lad sailing is way more dangerous than grooming a kid from miles away on the internet if you're that way inclined.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I don't know exactly how old I was - probably about 4 or 5, 6 at most; my brother was still a young toddler. Mum and Dad hired a caravan on Inchfad in Loch Lomond ("Home was an Island" by Ann Davison was written by the people we hired from), and it came with a small dinghy that we mostly used with an outboard motor. However, the dinghy had sails, and Dad decided to try them out one day (he had some sailing experience, but it was from a skippered charter on a classic racing yacht (Kalistra)). I remember being utterly terrified!

Actually, I've just checked and it couldn't have been the Davisons we rented the caravan from - they had left the island by the time of my birth. It must have been their successors.

 

[langstonelayabout]

For me it was at a tender age of about 11 on a week long holiday on the frigate Foudroyant in Portsmouth harbour. Yes, an RNSA 14 sailing dinghy was the first boat I properly sailed. Lovely boat and if I could find a nice one today I’d probably buy it.

that makes the second boat I sailed in a RN 27’ whaler. The third a Cherub dingh, but that’s a very different story...

 

[Kurrawong_Kid]

1948 in a Seabird from SCYC. On holiday at Abersoch I yearned to sail so hung around whenever one came to the s Shore. Eventually got a ride. Enthralled. Still am 71 years later and just want this crisis to end so I can get sailing again.

 

[Zarro]

So many similarities with others, but I suppose when we (now 76) were young there were far fewer classes of dinghy. Swallows and Amazons started my interest. I first sailed a couple of times in an early Enterprise (307) I think at Barnt Green then I think I sailed in her again at the Solway Yacht Club. I was lent a Heron one summer and apparently half of Kippford was watching this young lad "who knew how to sail from reading books", which everyone knew was impossible. I had my younger sister with me and when we neared the other side of the river with the bank looming, I remember saying "we have to turn, tacking is safer than gybing, so I turn the rudder that way." I did learn the basics from a book but everything else from experience including a rocket from Rummy Tummy, the Cadet Commodore, when I came alongside the jetty on the upwind side to swap my sister for my mother! The false idea of gybing being safer was soon dispelled on a windy day!

Racing a GP 14 for two summers followed two in the Heron. Finally gave up small boat sailing when my balance on the helm of an SB20, particularly gybing, meant being pulled up to windward by the crew too often. But at least in Cascais the water is relatively warm.

Jumble Duck will no doubt know the SYC well.

 

[shirazchaz]

I'd read Percy F Westermans Omnibus Book relating tales of Sea Scouts when I was about 8 and subsequently first sailed in a Firefly at Chipstead SC (Kent) with a lovely old boy called Herbert Chase (his sweater when waterlogged outweighed his bouyancy aid - an old yllow PVC job - DAMHIK), progressed to building a Heron in the sitting room one winter with my father and the rest, as they say is history....

 

[Babylon]

Interesting - now that this thread has run for a while - how few people reported that their first sail was on a Try Yachting Weekend, a Greek Charter or similar!