Early recollections of boating..

robp said:
in a non structured manner! What are yours?

I was about eight or nine. Myself and one of my older brother's mates who was also our next door neighbour, were at Latchmoor Pond in Gerrards Cross. We found an old "treasure chest" lid. (A 2'6" long, bowed top effort). I knew from an earlier age that I had to get afloat and this was it. It looked just like a boat! Not knowing much about ballast, form stability or whatever, (I still don't), I set off across the pond. Well, "across" is quite an optimistic term. Within seconds I was in the drink, crowned by the lid. By this time it was dusk and well past curfew. Brother's mate thought that he had better not be too involved in this wetting and said he would get off home. I squelched off after him but somewhat more slowly.

Next problem was, he called in at my house before going through the hedge and simply said; "Rob's in the pond"!

Ouch!!
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The old man used to work Caernarfon market, us kids would be there, trips from the harbour out the channel and back, magic!
Then Black Rock sands, caravan at Marrubbis, a wooden sleeper in the little stream to the left of the entrance to the beach. again days, weeks playing, simple pleasures!
Stu
 
Aged about 6/7, Dad bought an old Evinrude outboard twin and hired a 10ft dinghy from a Burnham boatyard. Remember chugging around the moorings and being allowed to steer.
Later, going with big brother in our own 10ft dinghy, to meet a friend he had made, an old guy on a smack anchored off Burnham.
No life-jackets or thoughts that two boys meeting an old man alone was inapropriate.
 
Aged about 9 or 10. For some reason father bought a gremlin dinghy from a small ad in the local paper. We had a caravan in Amroth, S Wales and I guess parents thought it would keep us amused on the beach.

For some reason we weren't allowed to tell any of Dad's farming friends and colleagues that we had bought a boat... He was too ashamed of the image that might portray!

Secondly, being the good farming stock that he was, he though that wearing his wellies would enable him to aid us in the launch without getting his feet wet.

There was only a very slight swell running and the waves were breaking probably about a foot or so high on the beach, but it was still enough for him to fill his wellies and for the boat to be swamped. I remember sitting in the boat, which was completely swamped, waves breaking over the pram bow and thinking that it wasn't supposed to be like this.
 
Very happy days...1950's

Soap box carts, scooters, roller skates, catapults..

Memories of making a canoe, wooden frames and strips and then covered with canvas, painted with red lead first, then grey funnel line paint....then paddling around the harbour, very slowly leaking, technically sinking...

Whelking off the rocks at Europa Point with my chum, the lighthouse keeper's son (we were 7 or 8), fishing off the rocks and playing around a derelict WW2 tank.

Being taught to scull off the stern of a clinker built grubby old rowing boat, line fishing for mackerel off same.

Meeting Commander Crabb in and around the harbour and being given a noseclip (which I still treasure).

Being sat on a big baulk of timber in the Dockyard and taking my turn at trying on a diver's copper helmet ( put over our heads by some naval charcter) so we could experience the weight of it. The trouble was, I was so small, I nearly disappeared into it.

My friend getting his head stuck in railings (somewhere near the destroyer pens) and four naval ratings heaving and parting the railings for him to extricate himself.

Rides on harbour tugs..being allowed on the bridge to blow the whistle..

Visits toi HMS Hermes, and lunch aboard, being fascinated by the bosuns' calls, tannoy announcements, flags, and seeing sailors not walking down companionway steps but artfully sliding down and other antics typical of shipboard habits..

Happy days..
 
1960 12 years old went to a sort of outward bound school on Lough Derg run by a barking mad ex RN Lt Cmdr. This place was heaven for a 12 year old. Big old house , old stables filled with American cars & tractors and do whatever we wanted. He had an old motor gun boat that we'd go off on for weeks up the Shannon.
One morning he had to go into town and most decided to go with him, this meant about 14 or fifteen kids packed into an old Plymouth (some in the boot) and a mad dash along narrow country roads. However, two of us decided to stay behind and go sailing, as we'd had a sailing lesson the day before.
We took out one of the old Shannon dinghies, basically a clinker built rowing boat with a mast. Light wind so we sailed out happily for about 1/2 a mile when the wind started to pick up. We both realised at the same time that we had forgotten the centre plate, but we were not strong enough to release this lump of iron and the 2nd gust capsized us. These are virtually impossible to right, even if we had known how. We had no life jackets and 3/4 of an hour later we were still upside down in the middle of the lake (it's a big lake). We were getting very cold and were discussing whether we should try swimming, we did know to stay with the boat.
We could see the house about half a mile away and there was a French guy staying there who came out and we could see him looking out and shouted and waved but he just turned away and walked off without any sign he had seen us. Now we started to get really worried however he had seen us and the we could see him coming out in one of the rowing boats.
There was a lot of hysterical laughter on the way back to shore and we thought we'd get into terrible trouble for turning the boat over, but no, I think we all went to the cinema that night and nothing was said.
It didn't put me off either, went back the following year. Best two summers of my life.
I don't think a place like that would last long in todays safety conscious times.
 
ReggieK said:
I don't think a place like that would last long in todays safety conscious times.
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I believe someone did try to run a school a bit like that in France. For British kids, with British teachers, but he reckoned there was likely to be less official nose-poking-in in rural France. I think he had good, if rather rose-tinted, intentions, but wasn't actually much of a success.

Pete
 
Blimey, 1960s, wiggling the tiller ineffectually on my dads old boat. Whilst wearing a straightjacket like kapok filled LJ.

Being taught to row v early on and sent off to get sunday papers and funny pyramid shaped long life milk and told not to hurry back ahem.

Endless mudlarks and adventures every weekend in and on an old black Avon dinghy, rowed for miles, or flipped mover and sat on on really hot days.

Hardly remember a wet weekend till I wus 10 !
 
Rowing an inflatable dinghy in Aberdaron bay with my dad, getting so far away from the beach (it seemed to a 6 year old) and being absolutely petrified. A few years later, sailing at Rutland Water with my dad, Silhouette heeled over so far I could see under the water through the cabin windows....again, absolutely petrified.
 
First old memory was off Gravesend in my father's first dinghy. I was about 3 going on 4 and we sailed around the estuary for the afternoon. The boat was craned in due to the tidal rise. I just found out that one of my cousins has the same boat. No idea how he got it, as father gave it to someone who was wanting to take part in the nationals around '71. Fleetwind no. 1. built in '48. I was allowed short trips alone from age 6 and had huge fun later.
Cars: Mother needed a fresh set of wheels in 62? Came back a bit dreamy eyed and said she wanted something she had seen in the local garage. We told her she needed a Mini, the dream one was a small RR. She got the Mini... But IIRR, the RR was a bit cheaper.
For quite a while after, the RR was still mentioned with a far-away look.But the Mini lasted 'till '74.
A
 
When I was 16 my friend Graham and I bought a Shearwater cat, we had never sailed before. The following Saturday we took the boat down to Old Leigh, where we could see lots of white tops and no yachts/dinghies out. We launched the boat between two high wharfs where there was little wind. We passed the end of the wharfs side on to the wind, with full sail up, and nearly got flattened, it was a near gale. We had the sense to turn downwind but not a clue what to do. Five miles later off Southend pier we struggled to get the main down without loosing control. We then sailed back with the jib. At the time the sails were known to us as the big sail and the little sail.

Afterwards we we had a been there done that point of view. We got more experience and then regularly went out in strong winds. Teenage stupidity really, we had no life jackets or flares.
 
Getting a Cadet for my 11th birthday. Had to pay my parents back for most of it as it was a lot of money for them. The birthday card had a bit of string going out through the letter box tied to the dinghy. Been boating in various size boats ever since.
 
Rowing my American aunt out to sea in Portmellon in a little flat-bottomed boat called "tout petit" by my pretentious parents (whose genes I've hardly inherited) when I was about five. My aunt stepped out into three inches of water and promptly sat down in her flowing dress and got very wet. I never did work out why I seemed to get the blame.
 
In the early seventies aged about 12 someone had dumped an old car roof in the park at the back of our house (Mote park, Maidstone) in this park is a lovely big lake. we took the car roof to the eastern end of the lake attached a thin plank to the middle struts for a seat and launched it upside down and using a longish branch as a paddle went afloat. It was very stable but only had about an inch or two of freeboard. we had a reasonable summer of fun on that after school when we could avoid the park wardens.

That sowed the seed and I saved what I could to buy my own dinghy from then on.
 
Lying down on the bilge of my father's Dragon trying to stay out of trouble during races.It was bloody uncomfortable but wonderful at the same time.I was about 4 at the time.
 
Voyaging on the "Amber", Robertson Line, 1969, aged 4. My Dad was an Engineer and we used to travel all over the place on this boat. It was a European Coaster type cargo vessel. I used to crawl all over the boat with my brother and no one really bothered.

In the late 1970s a school teacher used to take a few of us sailing on a GK29, "The Good Knight" on the Firth of Clyde, over to Ireland for long weekends. We also raced a lot. No hassle, no HSE freekery, just good fun. We got into some right situations with spinakers and figure of eight knots, anchor dragging and the occasional hangover!

Rowing boats on Hoganfield loch is probably the earliest recollection after the Amber.

Oh - some of you lot are ancient! Very illuminating.
 
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Too many to recall all of them...

Learning to write with my mother on a wet day off Moelfre, Dad sailing back in full oilies.

Playing in an orange Campari inflatable dinghy, which got eaten by the mice that winter.

Dad cursing the Vire 6hp, later 7hp engines, trying to start it with a pull cord and repeatedly banging his head against the coachroof (ours was a 21 footer), only for it to fire up and shoot the alternator belt down the cabin onto my bare legs - I can only have been about 5 or 6 at the time, but I remember it was off Port Dinorwic on our way back to the mooring at Gallows Point.

The smell of Peter Brimecombe's "office" at the back of his shed, with the kettle on the wood burner.
 
What a great post. I had really strong bonds to boating at an early age and I really don't know why, except maybe I heard stories of my father and others who endured the ravages of the sea in WWII. Yeah, I'm old enough to remember!

I have passed on this passion to a son and daughter and lately a grandson and granddaughter. I have an early memory of my early passions for boating if you care to read it called...Early Boating Memories - The Awakening of a Passion. It defined a moment in my life that has left traces to following generations. It's amazing what a singular moment can mean and the impact it can have on you and those that follow in your wakes.
 
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