What got you into boating?

thejonesey

thejonesey

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Like many I started boating because my Dad had a boat but the passion for it arose from a number of key experiences:
1. I spent a week on the Solent taking my Dayskipper on board a Fairline 36 turbo aged 15. It was the best time with Dad as we grappled with tides, charts and the like. The high point was the night trip back from Southampton way to Lymington. The clearest night, no one about, lovely and warm and with everyone up top enjoying a fast cruise. Or it could have been pontoon bashing in East Cowes -if you push this forwards and this backward you go around in clrlces....coool. (The downside was, while I passed the course I never got the certificate as you have to be 16!)
2. A wonderful evening out on the powerboat GEE, then named Melodrama and dressed for cruising rather than racing. I remember clinging onto my Mum as the engines were opened up -she (GEE not my Mum!) had an open cockpit so you could literally slide off the back! Great noise too! What a boat!
3. Ogling the new Princess 35 and 38 in Poole Harbour Yacht Club Marina (now Salterns) and thinking one day I want one of those rather like most kids want to own a Lambo or be a train driver! (Not managed that yet but have realised the dream of a boat with a flybridge and twin engines! Maybe a Princess one day.....)
Anyone else willing to share?
 
My mum and dad bought a Birchwood 27 when I was 14 (15 years ago) and I havent been able to give to boat bug up since - they sold it a few years ago though and not replaced it (for the time being anyway!)

Wife and I have hired plenty of times over the last few years ranging from the broads to the caledonian canal. Today we have finally bought our own boat and handover is next Saturday.

I'm not sure what it is but we both only feel relaxed, stressed free and at home when we're on a boat.
 
A strange one really, as children we had a brook and we made all sorts of things float, these originally were the old coach built prams with the wheels and top removed and the holes filled with putty.

From there we moved onto large polystyrene packing pieces, these made great rafts and were fine on the brook, and unlike the prams, we could go through the pipes under the road without grounding and getting stuck.

From here i went onto become an engineering apprentice, and onto a degree with my employer, this involved making many things float which would normally not float such as concrete. I made one tonne of concrete float from learning of displacement, and repairing many boat engines as my employer had a water skiing club discount rate, and several employees used this for water skiing. From here i moved onto fitting out the mechanicals in a family friends, friends yachts which he used for chartering.

It was all aboard from here, and as time and finances became available i progressively moved up to what i currently have, getting rid of the kids helped a lot in the finances department.
 
I love fish (on a plate) and did a lit of fishing as a nipper on local inland waters and even canals.

later on holidays with the olds a friend wanted to sail a hire dinghy and I wanted to go fishing, I did not manage to hook a single fish but I was hooked on sailing, that seems like half a century a ago and I'm still sailing (when not fixing someone else's boat).
 
For me it was when I was 9. My parents bought a Buckingham 20 and kept it on the river Nene. After about a week, my dad turns up with a copy of MBY (can still picture the boat on the front cover) and I always remember looking through and thinking that going fasted looked way more fun!!

Lets also not forget, credit where credits due........ Howards Way on a Sunday evening!! Proof if ever it was needed that if all the big boat companies got together and did a new boaty type soap / drama I swear boat sales would rise roughly 20 years later!!! :)
 
It was fishing for me. I used to organise a couple of trips a year for the office I worked in, generally down to Barmouth, Conwy or Swansea, have a boat chartered for the day, stop at a little chef and have bacon and eggs waiting for the sun to come up, on to the boat, have the day fishing, occasionally stop over. Gradually the office staff turned over and there were not enough people to carry on.
So decided to get my own boat and go fishing, did PB2 and bought a Bayliner 2455 but never did any fishing. We found it was more interesting to go places on the boat. And anyway SWMBO did not want the boat messed up
 
My parents had a Buckingham 20 as well (them damn Buckinghams have a lot to answer for) - used to cruise on the Mon and Brec canal (beautiful up there btw - go if you ever get the chance even just for a weekend).

That was it really - loved it, but did like the idea of going faster!
 
Always had a healthy interest in boats, but a bigger interest in Motorcycles and Aircraft.

Got a job mending and instructing on motorcycles for a living, decided that they were the invention of the devil, sold all me bikes and wondered what to do with the cash.

Wanted a hobby that was not my job.

Take up aviation again? Too much investment for too little time in the air.

Buy a speedboat? Gotta buy and run something to tow it too.

Buy a nice pocket sportscruiser? Keep it in a marina and visit it whenever we wanted, go out or stop in the marina and have a beer, sleeping overnight for no further cost other than petrol.

The mini sportscruiser represented a better return on investment per hour spent using it, which all sounds a bit cold blooded, but this was the rationalisation needed to allow my heart to buy one.

Never looked back.
 
Hi , very interesting post.

I like you had the passion for boats from my late Father, he wanted to go to sea when he did his national service but ended up land based in the RAF , he asked for MTB boats!.

So he eventually bought a 17ft wooden boat and had it on the canals for many years and various boats later bought a mk1 princess 33, soon we were at sea off the East Coast.

4 years later bought a Hitstar 42 in Majorca, brought it back to the uk.
We renovated it together, it was only 6 years old but had a hard life on charter, mbm used it when Paul Berger was around writing.

Sadly he passed away in 1999 but my passion to have my own boat never went away, though as a child my Dad loved motorsport especially rallying, when I was 18 I bought a mark 1 escort mexico and rallied for a number of years with him as my codriver on many occasions, as you can see I followed many of his passions and interests, apart from smoking!.

There are many times when im out in the solent I think of him, especially memorable places we went together on the histar 42.

Im still very passionate about boating especially as its my job as an engineer working on boats both in the uk and abroad.
 
Like others I had motorcycles and fast cars, EVO's 911s etc. Then I crashed one of the bikes (after about 15 years of managing to stay on) and decided that this time it hurt more than I remembered. So thought I should calm down a bit, sell the cars and bikes and get a boat. Been around boats for years, so I had an idea what it was all about, so we bought one, loved it and still do.
 
As a kid a freinds dad used to take us out in a small wooden boat he built with small outboard, i think it was down near totton way where we used to be able to collect concors from a tree on the waters edge...massive ones:D

Then at the age of about 16 my mum and dad bought a new house, when we moved in i rumages through the shed and found what i thought was a tarpaulin, it turned out to be a very old inflatable with woden transom, of i went with my savings and bought a Tomatsu 4hp engine and had a great couple of years on it.

Then my work as a driver at the time took me to Shamrock key to a place that sold inflatables and outboards, bought a brand new Achiles inflatable and a 4.5hp merc, this could actually plane with just me and i had many years of fun on that.

Marriage took its coarse and she hated boats and the water so i lost touch with the sea from my late 20's to now 43:eek::eek: Got a new partner who recently won a few quid on bingo, she new my love of boats and told me to go and buy one, she loves the sea too, so hopefully now we will have many years of fun out there;)
 
My dad worked in a mill in yorkshire where there was a dam. He made me a Pram dinghy which was used for all sorts of imaginative fun as a 12 year old, even sliding down the dam bank on it!

Since then we have a all small boats from 8' fibreglass with a seagull to water ski boats.

Great question to ask, with some interesting answers.
 
My father wanted me to play cricket for Yorkshire. So he made sure I was born there. Never know, I could have been a girl!!

I wanted a bike, but he bought me a cricket bat and wickets.

From about 4 years old, I always wanted to go on the boating lake. My parents hated it.

I was a big disappointment. Always ill as a child, Having operations and stuff, So never went to grammar skool.

Heaven was Butlins boating lake. Spent all week every year on there. Then from 18 onwards 25 holidays on the Norfolk Broads. My P33 came along and she went just about every where on the Irish sea. Tobermory, IOM, just about every where on the East coast of Ireland. Much of the South.

MF came along. Named a long time ago by coliholic. He could not pronounce her posh name. She's been just about every where there is in the known world.
 
It seems that parents and a love of all things fast are recurring themes here! I didn't mention that I had fifteen years away from the sea as Dad died then education and work took their course. (I did row seriously in this time but we'd best not mention that!)

Four years ago I went out on my brother in laws boat with the wife and she commented how different I was on the water -like I had come home. We both talk about this being the day that we got into boating as a family. Luckily SWMBO was up for a boat and we have been through three since.

Thanks for contributing, they make a great read!
 
I got into boating from a hospital bed, reading a fellow patients boat mags to while away the boredom, & the boats on the front cover became "shiny must have's" Probably helped me get through if I'm honest.
 
Caravaning !!!!! May sound strange but after many years of caravaning we found a site on the banks of the river Avon. As we sat enjoying a glass of wine watching the boats go by I said to my wife " Wouldn't you fancy having a go at that ?" which was promtly followed by "No Way" Five months later of boat hunting and working on the wife, we made our first purchase. Luckily for me we both love our first experience of boating. Long may it continue !
 
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