The first day I ever went sailing on my own boat... I was 15 and sailing a Hobie 16 in perfect conditions, around 10 knts of wind. A few other catamaran sailors showed up and helped me rig and adjust everything. I took one of their daughters out sailing and let her skipper the boat for a while. It took her 3 tries but she managed to capsize us. Her dad came sailing up on his TheMightyHobie18 with a heck of a grin on his face and helped us right the boat. I've been hooked ever since. I never did manage to pitchpole the H-16- isn't that odd?
About 3 years later I was sailing my G-Cat 5.7M with a friend (and much more expierienced sailor) crewing for me. We were sailing in some great conditions, around 12-15 knots of wind and smooth water. We were headed upwind and I pulled the tiller to bear off. The whole boat squatted to the aft starboard corner where I was sitting and I rolled backwards right off the boat! I was holding the mainsheet and being dragged along behind the boat as I pulled myself along the line. John asks "why are you sheeting in?" and looks back to see me gone! He puts the boat into irons so I can climb aboard and we have a good laugh about it. We tacked around and were going downwind on a pretty broad reach when I saw a nice gust coming up on us. I waited a fraction of a second too long to head down in the gust, and the jib-sheet got stuck (in the 20 year old Ronstal cleats). The boat pitchpoled to verticle. I have those garden-hose-and-3/16th-line style footstraps on my boat (3 per side) and was holding onto one so I stayed firmly planted to the hull- John went flying. I let go of the strap, slid down the tramp and put my foot onto the mast, then rolled into the sail. The boat settled over on it's side and John came swimming up- we had it righted in no time.
A few months ago my cousin came down to visit and I took him out on the boat a couple times. This was his first time ever on a sailboat. The first time we had pretty nice weather and I could stick him on the wire and fly the hull as high as I dared, or double-trap and just skim above the water at a decent speed. While he was trapped out alone, standing at the mast beam, I managed to nail a wave pretty good. The forward beam smacking a wave tends to slow the boat quick, and Kyle wasn't prepared for this and went swinging forwards. I'd expected him to land at the bow and just walk his way aft... but instead he just kept on swinging! I waited until he'd pulled the back of the boat out of the water to dump the sails, and he landed on the opposite side of the boat, just fore of the mastbeam. I dragged him for a little ways before putting the boat in irons so he could climb aboard. He had a sort of scared grin on his face and went right back out on the wire again. I let him know that if he stood further aft it wouldn't happen again.
A couple days later I took him and 2 other friends out sailing in a small-craft advisory. Winds were about 15+ knots and the seas were 4-6 feet. I didn't do any hull-flying or trapezeing, but we'd get 4/5ths of the boat airborne when flying off the waves. It was a heck of a lot of fun!
