What got you into boating?

[Andrew38]

It started on the Broads....

Had my 1st broads holiday at about 5 years old and found I just loved anything to do with messing about in boats. Enjoyed holidays on hire boats there for many years off and on into adulthood and beyond. Had ski boats when living in Singapore and a 1936 Collins broads yacht for a couple of years in the 90's.

In '97 was diagnosed with cancer and given a finite time so made the decision to buy something more serious. Started with a Broom 34, did my day skipper, bought a new Broom 38, then a Broom 42. Still healthy and in remission so have just bought a new sports cruiser!

Illness focuses your mind into doing things now rather than later. Plus I'm very lucky as my wife loves boating too.

 

[enterprise]

By accident

At the age of 21, a work colleague and I managed to get a pay rise, he did rather better than me having just stepped up into a new role and managed to get a substantial sum in backpay.

Having bought a new car he wanted to try boating, after another colleague was always recounting story's of being away every weekend waterskiing!, it sounded exciting so with the rest of his windfall he went and bought a speedboat.

On it's first outing around 20 of us gathered for a ride, having never been in a speedboat before he wanted someone with experience, none of us had any experience of driving a boat but I had been waterskiing on holiday a couple of years earlier, so I had the benefit of being the only one who had ever been in a speedboat.
Up for it, we launched the boat without any major problem, started it and pottered around for a while while we got used to the controls, eventually we got the thing on the plane.

It felt great but unbeknown to me the owner wasn't having such a good time, he asked would I like to drive, so off we went, me at the helm, even better.

After a little run there was the prospect of taking all of our other friends and colleagues for a spin, the owner subsequently passed me the keys and got out, I spent the rest of the day running everyone around!

On return from the weekend he decided it was not really for him, unable to afford it really I offered (without consent from the OH) to buy half, which he accepted.
So took out a loan for four years to buy the half, we used it for four years before I told my wife we actually owned half of it!!, expecting the worst when I eventually confessed, she actually said nothing which paved the way for bigger and better.

While we had the speedboat camping was the only real option, putting the boat in the marina overnight one weekend got us thinking about stopping onboard, so with everyone moving up from tents to caravans we took the opportunity to break away from camping and buy our first boat (now on our own), we bought a small but very practical Bayliner 2255 ciera.

Although we continued to trailer it, having owned it for a couple of seasons we decided we needed a permanent marina berth.
Once over the initial shock of annual berthing fee's we found we had more use, so again we decided we needed a bigger boat, first buying a sealine s240 and then a fairline Targa 28.

I'm afraid the story doesn't end there, after 22 years my friend and colleague who bought the first speedboat all those years ago has now found a boat that he feels comfortable on, it just happens to be our current Fairline, pity he hasn't got the money now but I owe him a couple of beers for introducing us to the joys of boat ownership all those years ago, so I let him drive occasionally while I sit back and have a beer!!!