How did you get into boating?

I grew up by the sea in the Med. In the 60s and 70s, I did not like football and I was too short for basket ball, hoverer I enjoyed water and played water polo in the winter and sailing in the summer at the local club. I raced on Optimists, voriens, 420s, 470s, Finns, dragons, flying Dutchman's; all great dinghies.

Later in life, I completely renovated a 24ft wooden boat (Cardiff), owned a Mirror Offshore(West Wales), a Bruce Roberts (East Anglia) and nowadays I relax by sailing my lay-back Macwester Wight in the Solent.
 
A long time ago and far away, the young and innocent but quite fit Bilbo was invited by a mate from college in Scotland to come sailing with him, at Dundee, in February. Came the day on the shingle beach in front of the Royal Tay, with horizontal sleet and big chunks of ice coming down the river from Perth 20-odd miles upstream. Yer man was 'fitted' into some borrowed torn neoprene troosers, a couple of rugby shirts, baseball boots, and a harnessy-thingy that was sizes too small. Then down to the borrowed boat, drawn up on the shingle.

"You'll climb onto this netting stuff when we go, and then hook this metal bit on your chest into that ring-thingy dangling on this wire rope here. Plant your feet on the hull-edge, straighten your legs when I say so, and get your sorry arris out over the water. You'll be helping keep the boat upright. I'll be steering and working the sails...."

So off we went, slowly at first then, as we came out of the lee of the shore-buiildings and the north wind hit us, not at all slowly.

"Get your ugly pink body out there!" yelled my host. I did. Green, white, green, white, green - we charged across the Tay to the south side. Immersed alternately in ice-cold wavetops, then arctic-blast sheets of spray, I could see nothing of what was around.

"Get In..... Get out the other side!" screamed my demented friend, as he gybed the boat round. Off we charged again....Green, white, green, white, green....back to the Broughty Ferry side of the river. It was so cold, it was so painful!

My mate ran the Tornado Olympic-racing catamaran back up on the beach just below the changing rooms, and strode off. "Get changed quickly and meet me up at the Clubhouse bar," he called over his shoulder. "I'll get the whiskies in."

I left the boat with a gaggle of teenagers whose family owned it, and limped - hunched over by the too-tight harness thing - into the changing rooms. Shaking now with the penetrating cold, fingers stiff and useless - today that would be called 'incipient hypothermia', but it hadn't been invented then - I couldn't undo the knots and buckles that bound me into this straps-and-canvas 'baby bouncer'. I was really struggling and losing, when a couple of soft white hands appeared from behind me, deftly opened the reluctant buckles, slipped the restraint harness to the floor, then peeled the soddden rugby shirts over my head.

"C'mon. We'd better get you into the hot showers. You'll come to no good standing there shivering," murmered the lithe young girl who'd watched us struggle ashore with the racing catamaran. "I'll help you get your circulation back..."

And she did. A deft hand with a bar of soap, she was....

To this day I remember the kindness and warmth of Kirsty, a young PE teacher from nearby Arbroath. A true redhead, she was the cause of me getting into - or rather 'out of' - sailing.... ;)
 
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Mum sent me on a multi activity week at island youth water activity centre in Cowes 3 days toper sailing 2 days kayaking. I loved both but Saling was awesome.

Before that, my dad had an Enterprise he sailed in crocodile invested waters in Nigeria and later we owned a Chinese motor junk in Hong Kong, a 55footer ... Ahh the good ol days when my parents were relatively wealthy.
 
oldbilbo said:
A long time ago and far away, ...........
when a couple of soft white hands appeared from behind me, deftly opened the reluctant buckles, slipped the restraint harness to the floor, then peeled the soddden rugby shirts over my head."C'mon. We'd better get you into the hot showers. You'll come to no good standing there shivering," murmered the lithe young girl who'd watched us struggle ashore with the racing catamaran. "I'll help you get your circulation back..."

And she did. A deft hand with a bar of soap, she was....
To this day I remember the kindness and warmth of Kirsty, a young PE teacher from nearby Arbroath. A true redhead, she was the cause of me getting into - or rather 'out of' - sailing.... ;)
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Hello OldBilbo,
Ever wonder where she is today?
 
Robert Wilson said:
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.
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Oh my God... I had a rush of blood to the head when at Grammar School in Cornwall an announcement was made about "school sailing club"... This was pre Easter holidays, and the next three weeks were spent doing the essentials under the tutelage of a teacher... i.e. wielding Nitromors on one Enterprise, and glasspaper and wet and dry on the other - which had been built from scratch at the school.

First sail I was told to arrive in Rugby kit, and was fitted out with an old Board of Trade kapok lifejacket. FIrst off, I couldn't hang on to the Ent as the sails were hoisted, but we finally set off, and I spent the evening slipping and sliding around on new varnish (what's non-slip?), nutted the corner of the foredeck, putting a permanent bend in my nose, slicing my thigh on the CB rubber stop bolt (still have the scar) and not daring to lean out far enough for teacher's liking...

Can't have been to bad though as apart from hating Enterprises I'm still at it 46 years later although bigger and more sedate having been through my own Cadet (sail no 198 bought for £25 which included the proceeds from selling my trainset), crewing Fireballs, Hornets, Ospreys, Five oh's, then having a Laser, crewing a Snotty and Ballad, before turnign Cat sailor (Prindle 19, Hobie 17 and Tornado) and then cruiser sailor.

The real things that I can't forget are Les Ferris' brother Henry turning up to race his very tatty ent, which he made go like stink, in his teaching gear, having forgotten his sailing kit, and just putting a waterproof on over his sports jacket and rolling up his trousers...

Happy days, when you lusted after a Hurley 20 as a big cruiser, and an engine was usually a Stuart Turner 4hp...
 
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Most summer weekends, Dad would load the Humber inflatable on to the roof rack, Chrysler 15 into the boot, and off to Herne Bay or Whistable we would go. Also had the opportunity to sail Toppers on a reservoir with the school sailing club, plus windsurfing at Westhampnett. Spent a fair amount of time trying to get a Laser to plane, too, but only succeeded in breaking a rudder :eek:
 
Grateful to the Ex

RYA Comp Crew 8 years ago.

Because the now ex-Mrs Babylon made me sell my 1978 R100RS a year earlier, thus removing my only notional means of escape!

:D
 
Was sent to sailing school to keep me out of trouble as a teenager (didn't work) and saved up a year's worth of Saturday job money to buy a Mirror which I happily sailed on the west coast of Ireland for a few summers. Then I went off to London and forgot about sailing for 20 years.
Four years ago I was back in Ireland and dragged the family on a day charter in Baltimore bay. On the strength of nobody getting seasick I took the next step and booked a comp crew course in the Med and we have since done a few family flotillas. I followed up with a day skipper and a couple of mile builders in the UK and am now looking around for our first family boat. The rest of the family seem to be slightly less keen, however...
 
Mum and dad grew up in Emsworth, and had sailed in Chichester harbour as teenagers. At some point, they teamed up with my uncle to keep a Wayfarer at Emsworth Sailing Club - not sure how old I would have been, but young enough to be wrapped up in towels and put to bed under the foredeck when I got a bit cold. I suppose it's in the Wayfarer that I learned to sail, although I don't really remember ever being taught.

A few years later, I received possibly my best ever present, a Mirror dinghy. We never kept this at the sailing club, we launched from the beach some way to the west, at my Grandma's house. This was always "my boat", named after my nickname at the time, though to begin with I had to sail with my dad. At some point, they decided I was capable enough to be let loose around the top end of Chichester Harbour with my younger brother or a non-sailing friend as crew; we could go as far south as the end of Sweare Deep, where it joins the main channel, which felt like quite a long way :). I've been trying to work out how old I must have been when I was allowed to take the Mirror on my own; my best guess is around 9.

I do remember me taking one of my Dad's friends out for a ride as crew once (we didn't count him as a sailor although I think he'd been out in a dinghy once or twice in the past) and rather surprising / shocking him with how fast the thing could shift :). Or that's what it felt like at 10, anyway :D

We still had the Wayfarer for family sailing, although for some reason as far as I remember we never used both boats at once, it was always either/or. A couple of times we took the Wayfarer all the way to East Head, which counted as a major expedition :)

At some point the dinghies disappeared, I can't really remember why. There was a bit of a non-sailing gap, and then my parents discovered Sunsail. The first time I ever got drunk (not particularly intentionally as far as I remember) was at a Sunsail punch party, aged 13 :). That's probably where I learned to sail bigger boats; although we'd often visited my grandad on his boat when I was younger, I'd never been involved in sailing it.

When I was 15 or so, my dad got a kidney stone (or rather, worried he was about to have a repeat performance of one he'd had before) and didn't come on the flotilla half of our beach/flotilla holiday. My mum and I had to handle the boat between us, which I know she was worried about - until she tried it and found all this "skipper" malarkey was really a piece of piss (well, it is on a Turkish flotilla, anyway).

At 18, I briefly joined the Army in Germany for a "Gap Year Commission". A chance remark about sailing got me hauled into the battalion sailing team, the first trip being a delivery voyage down most of the length of the Baltic, in February. Various other events continued through the year, both passages and round-the-cans, usually a week or ten days at a time. This is where I learned to properly sail bigger boats, as opposed to drifting around the Med in the sunshine.

While at Uni, and for a couple of years afterwards, a gang of us used to charter some rather ropey (but cheap) old boats around the Solent. These were school friends (indeed in the first couple of years some of them were still at school) and I could imagine other charterers (apart from the one with the ropey old boats) being reluctant to hire to such a crowd of young lads. So I decided to go and do a Day Skipper course to have a piece of paper to show them. Not sure I really learned anything (probably says as much about the instructor as about my own existing abilities :) ) but pumping out a yacht half-full of water on the third day of the course was certainly an experience.

Pete
 
Back in the mid 1980's, was suppose to spend my summer hols at a boyfriends mum's timeshare in Tenerife, he decided to go to the B'ol D'or 24hr motorcycle racing in France. His mum wouldn't let me use the timeshare on my own, so I was having major sulk in front of telly when Howard's Way came on. 'That looks like fun" I thought and next day rushed off to buy every yachting mag I could find and phoned around various sailing schools, they were all quite expensive and then I found Captain Kemp and booked with him. I arrived with 3 tone hair, a hard suitcase and a large tequila hangover. He gave me the tiller and introduced me to my sailing partner, another girl who had some experience. I had none. She spent the week being mortified by me whilst I had a great time, made a complete arse of myself and ended up hooked. And have yet to find anyone who makes sandwiches as excellent as Mrs Kemps.
 
Tricia said:
Back in the mid 1980's, was suppose to spend my summer hols at a boyfriends mum's timeshare in Tenerife, he decided to go to the B'ol D'or 24hr motorcycle racing in France. His mum wouldn't let me use the timeshare on my own, so I was having major sulk in front of telly when Howard's Way came on. 'That looks like fun" I thought and next day rushed off to buy every yachting mag I could find and phoned around various sailing schools, they were all quite expensive and then I found Captain Kemp and booked with him. I arrived with 3 tone hair, a hard suitcase and a large tequila hangover. He gave me the tiller and introduced me to my sailing partner, another girl who had some experience. I had none. She spent the week being mortified by me whilst I had a great time, made a complete arse of myself and ended up hooked. And have yet to find anyone who makes sandwiches as excellent as Mrs Kemps.
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Gadzooks !

Someone actually got into sailing via that programme, the times I saw it, it was all about bickering and hairstyles...when a chum and I bought a dog of an old International 14 and found it didn't go nearly as well as hoped,we painted it yellow and called it 'Cowards Way'.
 
Brave Mr Shrecker the chemistry teacher

at Dhekelia in Cyprus (King Richard School on the British military base) sailing Cadets, about 10 feet or so in length.

Water was so warm in the med that the frequent dunkings were no problem.

He was one brave teacher! and much appreciated.
 
Dad was a keen sailor, ex RNVR, and sold boats for a living for many years. He also owned a succession of old wrecks, which he brought back to life - after a fashion - and sold on. I spent much of my childhood mucking around in some of these boats, in an Optimist, and in a succession of rather dodgy dinghy/outboard combos on the Hamble.

It's a miracle I ever went to sea after that lot :)
 
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