What was your first boating experience?

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LAMBADA

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and what was the first boat you owned?

Ok! I will kick it off, 1st experience was sat behind my Dad racing a 16ft Tremlett with a 50 Merc on the River Mersey (scarred for life).
1st boat that I owned was a Formula 206LS, ask anyone who has owned a Formula and they will tell you that they are superb! and such a hard act to follow.
 
My first boating experience was in the early 50's on troopship out to North Africa where my dad was serving. I was sick all the way there and someone stole my birthday cake - its a wonder it did not put me off for life.

Our first boat "proper" was a Hardy 18 over well 20 years ago. How we loved that boat but we had to sell it to fund the start up of our business.

A local antique Dealer brought it for his son who had just got into Harrow. Many years later whilst trawling the boatyards we came across her looking unloved and very forlorn.

I cried.

We can never see a Hardy without stopping and reminiscing about how much simpler life was then.

May
xx
 
Apart from the Dover-Calais /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif , my first boating experience was a couple of years ago whilst doing my PB2 in Pwllheli, North Wales, after just buying our first boat, a Driver 440 - it went into a local crap boatyard for a few repairs and the bloke was so terrible, unreliable and left the boat sounprotected that it was in too bad a condition to get back, so we traded it in and bought a Bayliner 175, where I sped round and round in circles in it at Chasewater Skiing and Powerboat club in Cannock Chase. That was when the real fun began! Bit choppy though!

Just found it still for sale, quelle surprise! that pillock will never sell it! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

http://seamark-marine.co.uk/brokeragepages/159_driver440.htm
 
Good question ..........

My first experience was also my first boat !

A Chapparal 1950 I think ( length, not year !!)

Single 4.3 Mercruiser from memory

Had her dry stacked at Poole Boat Park, only ventured as far as Swanage ! How times change !


Adrian
www.cleanandshiny.co.uk
 
My dad bought a Coronet 27 in 1971 and we kept her for a season in which we navigated the entire length of the River Medway that was accessible in such a fine vessel.

Despite everyone telling us how she would cruise at 30 knots we never managed more than 9 when below Folly Point even with twin volvo petrols. Sold her after a year to a man who needed to be able to leave the country in a hurry - we didn't let on he wouldn't get far... He had an XJ6 with a fridge in the boot that I thought (at the age of 14) was something to aim for.

Apart from the lack of speed, the starboard outdrive would not lock when put astern and would flip up and froth the river like a steaming latte. Rather than have it fixed, my father tasked my long suffering mother to hang over the stern with a boat hook and hold it down whenever we approached a mooring. One of the earliest experience was, therefore, learning the art of apologising when the mother/volvo/skipper combination failed. No wonder they invented IPS.

Highlight of our first cruise was 2 days lashed with rain on the Queenborough barge followed by 3 days lashed with rain on the Town Moorings in Tonbridge. Lived in Essex then and Kent was a foreign land. Now as a resident of Tonbridge I walk past the Town Moorings every day and wonder where the cinema went.
 
My first boating was on an Israeli navy cigarette ([--word removed--] fast and full of ammunition)

My first boat was an Albin 25, that boat took us every where across the channel to Belgium and France and down to Plymouth and up to London and east coast.

Tom
 
At around 13 years old, when the family would bounce along the Thames from Putney, on a four seat Speed boat powered by a red-band Mercury 70, followed by a Shetland 535 and a later Mercury 50.

I saw all the usual sights, Tate and Lyle, Battersea power station (Working!) and the Houses of parliament too, where my father taught me it was a place full of thieves from an early age...

Tate and Lyle are no longer trading (?) the Power station doesn't work, but the Thieves are still in business.

Thats life eh? /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
My first boating memory is being taken out in a small open boat by my grandad - off Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. I was about 5 or 6 years old (and I'm in my forties now...). Happy days.

Cheers
Jimmy
 
Dinghy's from a child. but first big boat was they day i bought here back from dartmouth to the solent. With my so called friends that were meant to be experienced. I could sail but not read a chart, which was not handy when all the crew were chucking up over the side 2 miles south of portland bill. I abandoned and managed to get the boat into weymouth although i did find the overfalls for the first time !
 
Too young to remember my first excursion on the water but here's an early picture (apologies, because I've posted it before).
untitled.jpg


The passenger, who was my dad, is managing to keep a remarkably composed expression, considering he's sitting in a boat piloted by an eight-year-old who has just pressed firmly on the loud pedal /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif.

First boat was an Optimist - sail number OP 287: some things stick in your mind!
 
Mid to late 70's in my brother's 12ft Shakespear c/w Merc 35 on the back. We spent most summer weekends in Porthcawl bay bombing about, completely oblivious to the dangers, useless lifejackets, no flares no radio. As a 10 year old I was devastated when he sold it before getting married . At the time I promised myself that I would buy a boat when I was big.

10 Years later I bought my first boat, a 12ft Shakespear.
 
Mine was back in 1972 when I was christened on my parents wooden boat. Memories are a bit vague, though.

Most significant memory is when I was around ten and my father went to undo the ropes and accidentally left himself to the jetty leaving me to do a circle further away on our 15 meter steel boat and then back to pick him up again. I was terrified and swallowing tears but made it back allright.

I know now that he did it on purpose. Looking back, it's one of the best memories though.

My first 'own' boat was a used 33ft Tristan I bought together with my brother in 1999.
 
when i first read this post my first thought was that my first boating experiance was on a flotilla holiday in Greece about 15 years ago, having seen it on a holiday program and thinking "that looks fun" BUT having thought some more i realised i did some mirror dinghy sailing in Sutton Park (Sutton Coldfield) when i was about 14, and then remembered that i was in the sea scouts from about the age of 10. It appears my love of the sailing didnt come suddenly when i was 30 as i'd always thought!!!
 
AH yes! IANJ66 you have just reminded me of an earlier experience before racing the Tremlett. At the age of 8 some 41 years ago with my Dad again (God! what a nutter) caught out in fog, no life jackets or compasss in a 13 ft Hydrocraft with 35hp Merc, managed to somehow find the shingle beach on Puffin Island (off Anglesey) and sit it out until fog lifted. How things have changed with regards to safety (for the better I might add).
 
First experiance was a weeks holiday in Cornwall where my parents hired a little 16-18fter called Vixen from Mylor, had a fun week exploring the Fal although we did manage to breakdown on the last day!

Returned to Mylor and Falmouth and hired various similar boats and on a couple of occasions a small sailing boat! (it did have an engine /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif)

First boat was an early 1980's Glastron speedboat (17ft) with a 65/70hp on the back it was blue and virtually no freeboard and a deadrise of about 2 degrees! in the solent it loved to go through waves instead of over and on one memorable occasion it enjoyed a quick skip accross bembridge ledge /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif and on another (earlier) occasion it made a good attempt to sink.. think I'll always rememeber my brother asking if the fuel tanks were meant to float!!!
 
Tell a lie!

My first ever boating trip was in a barque electrique in port Grimaud! Top speed of around 1 knot (literally!!!) and I almost got run over by 'Champneys', the Sunkseeker Manhattan 66 med charter yacht! Scared me to death when it blew the horn!

One of those in front of the church:

img-3.jpg


As some will know there is a large turning area facing the church, we were stuck going at 1 knot in about 4 knots of tide coming in the opposite direction!

They're actually dangerous, so small I've almost gone over the top of one in a monster truck sort of fashion, heading straight for me - there's no steering at that low speed.

After that experience, we hired a motorboat - a Quicksilver 420 from Nautic-Location - promptly turned too quickly and crashed into a rubber dinghy, bounced off and knocked the outboard cover coweling thing off an Evinrude 250!

206.jpg


It's madness to let amateurs drive those in the narrow channels of PG!

Anyway, from that day on i've loved boating and ended up in a place I love - it's like a Mills and Boon tale!
 
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