My father had a Hobie 16 when I was about 6 years old. That memory is what made me consider catamarans when I decided to get into sailing when I was 29 years old. No strangers to the ocean, beach, or boats (power mostly at this point), when I was 12 my dad and I hand built a boat very similar to a sunfish but with a little more room. It was a very functional little boat but one that scared be to death when we nearly flipped it on Port Royal Sound off Hilton Head Island, SC. It wasn't that I was a ninny or anything, but I had just seen the movie Jaws (several years after it came out) and had very little interest in finding myself immersed in the salt water.

I didn't have a whole lot of interest in getting back in the boat after that and we didn't live near any major lakes at home. I was 29 before I just happened to set foot on a sailboat again to fill in for a friend who was short on crew and the rest is pretty much public internet record.