How did you get into boating?

Talulah

Talulah

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One of the attractions at the Southampton Boat Show is "Try a boat." and it would be interesting to know if anyone has taken up boating as a result of that.
However, almost everyone on here will pre-date "try a boat" and so I wonder how you got into boating?

For me - my father ran the sailing club at the local Comprehensive where he taught Physics. He would occasionally pick me up on route to the dinghys at the gravel pits. I was still in Primary School at the time. Then in my teens we built a Roberts 34.
 
First sailed in a mirror dinghy off Calshot when I was about 11 then got into diving in the 80s so been a mobo fan since then. Still saill if I get the chance but not dinghies.
 
Talulah said:
One of the attractions at the Southampton Boat Show is "Try a boat." and it would be interesting to know if anyone has taken up boating as a result of that.
However, almost everyone on here will pre-date "try a boat" and so I wonder how you got into boating?
Click to expand...

The company I worked for used to charter three or four boats in the spring and autumn Sunsail racing series each year. One November in the mid-90's I thought I'd tag along to see what it was like and got hooked.
 
Much later in life for me, ran out of work teaching SCUBA in Thailand in 2009, looked around for some crewing and, never having sailed before, did Thailand to Maldives 1500 miles across the Indian Ocean, crew of 2 on a Rival 38. Now live on my wee Vega...:)
 
I worked for Offshore Yachts & helped a former customer finish a Hustler 30 evenings & w/e.
he then asked me to help him fit out
a 24 footer & a Nantucket Clipper both for charter in S o France
we then fitted out an S&S 34 for himself
in the meantime i bought a mirror dinghy kit then a Silhouette Mk 11 & used this chaps mooring, sailing one w/e & working on the S&S the other w/e.

It has cost me a fortune since :D
 
My parents kept a Hurley Felicity at Hullbridge, on the Crouch, in the early 1960's. I spent many childhood holidays and weekends exploring the East Coast. Incredibly, by today's standards, there were five of us aboard (Mum, Dad, 2 sisters and I).

My first boat was a rather tired, soft, Heron dinghy, when I was 11.

We've now gone full circle. Now in their eighties, my parents come (day) sailing with Jos and I. Still on the Crouch.
 
In the 70's my father used to take me out in his Mirror Dinghy where they have just held the Olympics. He was still learning himself and managed to get the boat jammed by the mast under the little road bridge! I did my RYA level 3 in a Mirror nearly 30 years later - good boats :)
 
I was reading a forum on the internet one day and realised that if I got a boat I too could one day be a grumpy argumentative old git. I bought the boat and started arguing every day so now I'm just waiting to get old :D
 
Back in 1991 I started windsurfing.
16 years later I bought my first sailing boat. Nowadays, unfortunately (not much exercise), I sail more than windsurf.
 
Family holidayed in St Mawes from 1954 to 1986. I was last of the five of us to learn to sail (lessons) with Les Ferris - thought "if they're all sailing then s'pose I'd better try it". The best decision I made in my younger years. In the 32 years of "first learning period" I crewed on Fireflies, Enterprises, St Mawes One Designs, Sunbeams, and various cruisers.
My progression from starting:-
"Edith" - old working boat; lessons from Les Ferris, St Mawes 1956
"Curlew" - Heron dinghy; St Mawes 1958.ish
"Waterhen" - Enterprise; Ullswater 1960.ish
"Benbecula" - MAGNIFICENT Gaff cutter (1897) 21ft W/L - 36ft O/A; St. Mawes 1963.ish
"Zeeheks" - Invicta; St. Mawes 1968.ish
"Sir Winston Churchill/Malcolm Miller" - STA Schooners; Irish Sea/Channel Ports/Brest 1968/9
Nothing between 1980/2010, then "second learning period":-
"Khamsin" - Javelin30; Loch Ewe/Northwest Scotland

I count myself as one of life's most fortunate for having learnt to sail and being privileged to sail-in/own such a variety of dinghies and larger boats.
 
About 20 years ago, a holiday visiting an uncle in Seattle. We had 3 days on his sailing boat to Vanvouver Island and back.

At the time we lived about as far from the sea as possible in the UK

9 years ago we moved to Scotland, 3 miles from the coast. Briefly looked at buying a boat then, but could not afford one.

3 years ago we re visited the idea. thanks, it seems, to the credit crunch, used boat prices seemed a lot lower and we could actually afford one.

Then we started to actually learn to sail.
 
Back in the very early 1970s a colleague/girlfriend wanted to learn to sail on a puddle in Putney, where she lived, so I accompanied her on that. Turtle dinghies, I think; what a choice of name!

At some point bought an Enterprise and trailed it around to Thames and S Coast launch sites. Never joined a club.

Then in 1974 somehow discovered a new thing called flotilla sailing so went on that with one friend and two strangers, in a Snapdragon 747. Been doing that, and crewing with friends, ever since. See Yachting holiday trips; 1974 to present

Mike.
 
Took a day sail out of Gibraltar and ended up staying the week to do a comp crew. 10 months later got married, bought a boat and sailed away on an eight year 25,000 mile Odyssey. :)
 
In 1990 I had lots of sales incentive vouchers to spend. I was between wives at the time, so when I went along to a travel agent to see what I could buy in the way of a singles activity holiday. Their first offer was a week in Falmouth, then one of the girls found a 2 week holiday learning to sail Wayfarers in Paxos with Falcon, sold!

Initially it was the prospect of sun, cheap drink and single females that attracted me!
 
When I was 13 we moved to Burnham-on-Crouch where the local Comprehensive had a sailing club, with four Cadets and a Devon yawl. When we moved to South Africa two years later I pestered my dad to get me a dinghy for R100 and I went sailing every weekend in Durban harbour until we de-emigrated three years later. No history of sailing in our family at all, unless you count my great-great granddad who was on square riggers.
 
In the early '70's my parents were looking for a cottage in the Lakes to use as a base for walking W/Es and holidays, they were too expensive. The put their name on the waiting list for a mooring and ended up with a Westerly Windrush on Windermere.
We were let loose with mates on Windermere.
They bought a Leisure 27 in '79 and moved that to Kip in '82. We were never let loose in that.
I didn't sail much as the family were growing up but got a Mirror to sail on the local gravel pit.
Post divorce I got my own boat, currently on my 3rd and 4th, the ex thinks I'm "frittering my money away on boats" :D
 
School PGL holiday, sailed Toppers - had some lessons and that was the start - had a 10 year gap then got a cabin cruiser as a shell and rebuilt it over 4 years, didn't get on with so traded it in now have a Hanse 301 !

Cheers

Stu
 
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