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For me, I learned to sail on a wooden Sailfish (flat deck version of a Sunfish) that our family built in the basement from a kit, when I was about six.


That's creepy - that's exactly what happened in my family. Dad built the Sailfish in the basement, but I was only about 4 years old. Later additions were a Flying Junior and a Hobie 16.

First boat I owned myself was a Sunfish I bought with my own money at 16 (new, it was $658). I inherited the H-16 at 23.


Building Sailfish may be a common thread here...

My parents had one of the first fiberglass Bullseyes (Hereshoff 12 1/2 knockoff) made by Cape Cod Shipbuilding - molded in ribs, cotton spinnaker. Great sailing boat for the Narragansett Bay. At 13 I built my own Sailfish knock-off - still have it, a little refurb project in the waiting. By then my Dad had gotten a Northstar 500 25 keelboat, learned a lot on that too. My Dad was real interested in multis, but my first cat was a hobie-14 I bought used after college. I didn't start any kind of racing until later when I got involved in the Galesville fleet with my Hobie-18 Magnum.

Pirates of the Chesapeake
WRCRA