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

I had been ill and bought a GP 14 on a whim as an instant thing afterwards. Trailed it home and my wife was amazed as I had never expressed any interest in saily things. I took it to the Mere at Tatton and with my little daughter and an instruction book set off, downwind, as it happened. Fine until I tried to sail back and the boat did not seem to be able to tack at all and I drifted into the reeds where some friendly scouts in a large rowing boat pulled me out. One of them noticed that I had not got the centreboard down. I did better after that.
 
First sail was 55 years ago, I was three, around Scapa Flow in a motor sailor. I remember the heads were in the bows. Last time I was sea sick was on the old St Ola in the Pentland Firth.

Later on was lifted up by the Coxan of the Longhope Lifeboat so I could see inside the wheelhouse. In 1969 he and the rest of the crew of TGB lost their lives.

I also was able to sit in the Captain's Chair on a couple of Royal Navy frigates and recall drinking Coca Cola in the Officers Mess.
 
I started at 8. My neighbours bought a GP14, and at that age I was already a Swallows and Amazons fan...! Sailing on the lake at what is now Thorpe Park. Was just a gravel pit with a little hut for changing etc.

Then when I was about 10 my uncle and aunt bought a small yacht, a Hurley 22 (? maybe 24) which they kept at Cramond. A long way from home in Surrey but really inspiring. Loved it.

And here I am now. Still loving boats. A lifetime of fun and terror in unequal measure, leavened by periods of extreme poverty....!
 
In “Dora” a 15 foot built by Burgoyne of teddington.Shehad a iron bowsprit and massive standing lug rig,my father bought it at teddington lock it was that or a slipper launch,it was during my fathers expansive period he towed it with a Rolls Royce painted bright yellow,but the enduring memory of the boat is wet week ends sheltering under the mainsail having a picnics
 
An Albacore about 1965 on a reservoir in Wales. Organised by the CCPR for the local council.
Distinct lack of 'elfin care.
Didn't have the faintest idea what was going on. Difficult to put an Albacore over, but it was my earliest dunking.
 
Laminar Flow said:
Yes, that's the stuff dreams were made of back then. As a kid I read Heyerdahl on Kon-Tiki, even built a couple of working models of the famous raft; who needs upwind performance? Still think it's highly over-rated, IMHO.
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In which case you (and others) might be interested in a film to be shown 23:30-01:25 Sunday night on BBC2 TV called"Kon-Tiki". I know only what is written in the Radio Times review: "Filmed on the open sea, this handsome movie feels both authentic and modern..."; it gets four points out of six. Fortunately it also "... skips the less sanitary aspects of six men being at sea ... for 101 days..."
 
I was aged about eight, my parents had just bought an old West country trading ketch and were having it done up in Ramsgate. It had a little tender which was a bit like a Mirror only smaller and without a jib. I remember sailing all over the inner harbour at Ramsgate in it bouncing off all sorts of things until I had the hang of things. I hate to think what the other boat owners thought of me! I subsequently went on to sail that dinghy in every port we called at between the UK and South America, it was one long brilliant adventure.......except for the night I spent in her in the middle of the river Gambie in Africa. The wind had died and I couldn't row back against the tide. Used semaphore to tell my parents I was OK and eventually made it back when the tide turned!
 
Late 1950s, National 12 dinghy, on the Thames somewhere near Teddington, taken out by a work colleague of my mother. As I recall there was little wind that day, and the hazards to avoid were the tripper-launches and getting the masthead caught in tree branches if you went too close to the bank before going about. A great treat for a Swallows and Amazons reader.
 
Scala said:
Um... Wansworth I lived in Surrey from 55-76, I remember a yellow roller in and around Esher / Molesey / Weybridge / Kingrton... Bentalls car park. . Not your dad was it? That'd be quite a thing.
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Could well have been............it was a brief period in the family fortune or madness of my father,downhill afterwards!it was built specially for a sea captain and had wooden framing like a Morris traveler.
 
mjcoon said:
In which case you (and others) might be interested in a film to be shown 23:30-01:25 Sunday night on BBC2 TV called"Kon-Tiki". I know only what is written in the Radio Times review: "Filmed on the open sea, this handsome movie feels both authentic and modern..."; it gets four points out of six. Fortunately it also "... skips the less sanitary aspects of six men being at sea ... for 101 days..."
Click to expand...
I have seen and enjoyed it on Netflix, I think. Heyerdahl's grandson did a repeat trip, using centre boards for steering instead of a sweep as grandpa did.
 
Think I was 3 or 4 and father took me out in the Thames Esturary from Gravesend in the 12ft Fleetwind., by the age of 6, I was allowed out in it by myself, if wind was mild...
 
First sail was in Port Mahon on a CC course which First Mate and I took after we decided that Sailing might be a replacement for our previous pastime of motorbike racing. About 2001.

First time in a boat was with Dad on the Serpentine in Hyde Park in the clinker rowing boats. Mum was at home with younger brother. I was about 4. Dulwich park was another venue for the row boats.

I remember seeing porpoises from the old paddle steamers going into Cowes as a very young child.

What's brown and steams out of cows...........................................
 
At the age of about 12 on a family holiday in Newport West Wales with two other families. Dad went off to the pub with my two uncles one lunchtime and came back with a canvas and wood folding dinghy with a single sail. Dad then proceeded to teach us all (brothers, cousins and uncles) to sail in the estuary on the river Nevern.
 
First sail was in a friends Mirror dinghy, off Mevagissey , trouble was we had spent a rather heavy lunch hour in the Harbour Lights on pints of scrumpy so I seem to remember us pending more time in the water of under the dinghy than in it, but strangely enough I loved it ans so started my addiction to sailing and the commensurate penury.
 
My father bought me a Walker Super 12 clinker dinghy when I was 10. My friend & i rigged it on the beach & waited for him to arrive to show us what to do & after an hour when he came he asked if we had enjoyed it. On explaining that we wanted him to show us what to do he said that he did not know either. He certainly was not going in it!!.So we launched it & I taught myself to sail that season. I was hooked for life.
Picked it up in no time & next year when my father built a Silhouette I cruised that about as well .
He bought me a Cecil Doe Hornet when i was 16. That was real fun & I joined Stone sailing club in 1963 & still a member.
 
It would have been about 1975 at Doncaster Sailing Association at Barnby Dun. A little patch of water between the River Don and the canal. Crewing in a Scorpion or a Graduate dinghy - I can't remember which was first.
Interesting gusts and shifts when the wind was blowing between the cooling towers of Thorpe Marsh power station.
 
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