My Dad was a sailor. First, he built his own boat (small scow looking thing) then got entranced by the Shark catamaran. First regatta I remember is the 1974 Shark Nationals in Hampton/Newport News/Virgina Beach area (I bet Mary was there). He evolved to the Tornado, then the brand spanking new Nacra 5.2. We spent many, many hours on that boat and he eventually became a Nacra dealer. At the Nacra North Americans at Lake Tahoe (1982, I think), I got to ride on a Roland 36 (Tom Roland, designer of the Nacra line - maybe?). It looked like 5.2 on steroids. The skipper took me and about 8 nuns in their habits out on the lake for a sail (plus his crew). We almost turned the boat over in a puff. Quite exciting as the nuns were scurrying around the boat trying to maintain their decorum.

I have a brother and a sister who have no real interest in sailing and were raised in the same environment. I've always thought that it was odd they didn't get bitten by the bug.

I'm telling you, it's genetic. If you have the gene, you will be drawn to it like a moth to a flame, and you will find a way to learn to sail. If you don't have the gene, then you play golf.

HOW we started to sail and learned? This thread might really become long.


I think it must be the genes. I grew up by and on the north sea in small motor boats. Sailing was not something I considered a worthy pursuit however, but I did all kind of other sports. One day I just got the virus, found an old derelict Tornado really, really, cheap, which I rebuildt. Went sailing with a friend who had sailed a dinghy two seasons 15 years ago. Friend had the helm, while I crewed. Both totally novices to cats and did not really know what we were at. Sails was as old as the boat, early 80s. No other cats for 400kms around to learn from, learnt by trial and error and by reading everything we found about cat sailing and sailing. Local sailing club was down for the time, so no dinghy environment to piggyback on either. "Catamaran racing for the 90s" was a treasure trove when we found it. Later, when we got the basics under control we started hunting down older scandinavian Tornado sailors, phoned them or visited them to get feedback and ideas. Everything became much easier when the internet "took off" and forums like this gathered catsailors who dont mind sharing their experiences and ideas. Today, you can find most tuning information, technique descriptions and "go fast" information with a web search..
Presently, we still sail and compete together, but the boat is new, a Marstrøm Tornado. It's just as fun to go for a cruise or blasting around today, but working as a team to make the boat go fast and learning something new all the time is what makes the sport rewarding. The difference between a good team who play the boat together and two individuals on the same but is just immense.
There are so many different aspects to the sport that I dont think I'll tire from it for a long time yet..

Like a friend said "sailing is like AIDS, once you get the virus you will never be free from it".


We have introduced some friends (and others who wanted to try) to cat sailing, but very few catch the virus bad enough to get their own boat. Local monohullers want a ride, just to have done it, and are impressed by the speed we can get up to, but none have seen the light and come over from the dark side yet.

My first sail was with my Father on Barnegat Bay in NJ when I was about 7. He had blown up the motors in his cabin cruiser and decided to try sailing instead. He had bought an old wooden monohull and spent a lot of time stuck out in the bay trying to figure it out. My next exposure to sailing was about 3 years later at Boy Scout camp in NY state, where we had moved. I remember being drawn to the sunfish that they had there and the little time I spent on them was not enough. Four years later the parents are divorced and I move to Florida with my Mom and brother. I spy a catamaran/windsurfer rental shack on Clearwater Beach and that was all she wrote. My Mom paid for us to be taken out on a 30 minute ride. When the H16 powered up and the rudders started singing and that hull came out of the water I was hooked. I started riding my bike 12 miles to the beach every day in the summer and on weekends the rest of the year to have the privelege of "assisting" the guy who actually worked there. He would take the money and get stoned in the hut and I would get to sail the boats as payment for my slave labor. I was teaching tourists the basics of sailing in about 20 minutes and then sending them out on their own. I would draw pictures of catamarans on all my school folders and would hang out at the Hobie dealer looking at Hobie Cat Sailing, by Jake Grubb for hours. I spent the next 20 years renting and borrowing cats until I finally purchased my first boat, a TheMightyHobie18 Magnum. I am now just starting my "next level" of sailing training, learning the science of sailing and all of the technical aspects of sailing well, rather than just "point & go". My training plans include videos, books, getting as many good sailors to sail with me as possible, and taking Rick's sailing classes next spring. I am also seriously considering signing up my kids to the Clearwater Sailing Center so they can learn more by taking actual lessons and be around more kids their age that are also into sailing. They have Optimists, Lasers, JY15s, and Waves available.

I am always talking up sailing to my friends and people I meet and I always offer to take them sailing or to help them get started. Most of them have the perception that it is just too much work even though they have never actually tried it. I do have a couple of friends that are now trying to fit getting a cat into their budget. They had sailed previously and my constant chatter has resparked their interest. Two of my three daughters are also into it.

I have taken several people I work with out for a quick sail on the 6.0 and most of them loved it. 2 of them were actually looking into getting a cat but one is moving to iceland and the other is getting deployed. oh well, I will continue my efforts! (mainly so that I have people to sail with who have as weird of a schedule I do- I work most weekends)

Okay, I'll buy the genetic supposition because I have been hooked pn sailpower since age 8 (beetlecats around the Cape and a girlfriends Wianno plus the odd Sailfish and Sunfish) but I am also a 7 handicap and so the gene can't be an either/or with golf. Are there any more of you who feel that the club isn't exclusive? I truly think I have a semi-retired gene (so named by my wife). I have more hobbies than I have time for. Sailing comes first but it scares me to think I haven't passed "the sailing gene" onto my son. I guess it's hit or miss?
Thanks Mary, for posing the question....... I have found this topic very interesting. I am promising, here and now, to take at least 6 newbies sailing when the good weather returns.

Greg

But if you are that good at golf, you are not spending enough time sailing. What is it they say about golf; "A good walk spoiled" or something like that?

A man is stranded on a desert island, all alone for ten years. One day, he sees a speck in the horizon. He thinks to himself, "It's not a ship." The speck gets a little closer and he thinks, "It's not a boat." The speck gets even closer and he thinks, "It's not a raft." Then, out of the surf comes this gorgeous blonde woman, wearing a wet suit and scuba gear. She comes up to the guy and says, "How long has it been since you've had a cigarette?"

"Ten years!", he says.

She reaches over and unzips a waterproof pocket on her left sleeve and pulls out a pack of fresh cigarettes.

He takes one, lights it, takes a long drag, and says, "Man, oh man! Is that good!"

Then she asked, "How long has it been since you've had a drink of whiskey?"

He replies, "Ten years!"

She reaches over, unzips her waterproof pocket on her right sleeve, pulls out a flask and gives it to him.

He takes a long swig and says, "Wow, that's fantastic!"

Then she starts unzipping a longer zipper that runs down the front of her wet suit and she says to him, "And how long has it been since you've had some real fun?"

And the man replies, "Wow! Don't tell me that you've got golf clubs in there!"

Mary,

See my baby smile in the profile photo. I sailed the boat in that photo about 9 years later and smiled exactly the same. It might be genetic predisposition. Why not?

I remember with rich details when I played in the bathtub with a big white plastic toy boat - my first boat. I should have been three years old, maybe less.

At age six, the first money I put my hands on was saved for the declared purpose of "building a boat". Awareness of money, saving and economic issues in general all developed as a function of my NEED to have a boat.

When I was nine a relative noticed my enthusiasm during a ride in a rowing boat and, together with the sailing director, convinced my mother to inscribe me in the club's sailing school.

Theoretical classes were given by an old sailor at night during the week, with the aid of projected transparent photos ("slides") and small wooden toy boats.

Practical classes were given by his son during the weekends, using the first Optimist built in Brazil (1969). My former teacher is now the permanent coach of the Brazilian Olympic Sailing Team and that Optimist is preserved with a golden plate explaining its importance. It makes one feel old.

Afterwards it was the usual: racing and cruising many types of boats and reading everything available. The main reason for learning English was to read more magazines about boats. "Playboy" was in English as well, but who cared about the text?

Multihulls came to my life later, at age 32, but this is yet another story.

And they say: "regattas are comparable to tearing $100 bills during a cold shower".

Years ago I received an email with the same joke, only the man was an engineer and his reply was: "Wow! don't tell me that you have Internet!"

Engineers and golf:

A lawyer, an engineer, a doctor, and the club pro were playing golf and being held up by the group ahead. The club pro explained that the group ahead were blind fireman who had save the clubhouse but were injured and lost their sight. The doctor said "I need to examine them and see if I can do anything to restore their sight". The lawyer said "I should be able to get them some real compensation for their loss from the insurance companies" and the engineer said "Why can't they play at night?".

Sorry to take this so far from the subject but I couldn't resist.

I would much rather be sailing than playing golf. I keep trying to recall how I learned to sail and it is all in bits and pieces. I recall being on a small sailboat with someone else and not really knowing what I was doing. I remember getting suggestions from my father who was an accomplished sailor. He built a 9' sailing pram and I learned on it. It all boils down to you learn by doing. Reading the basics will get you prepared but you have to experience what happens when you luff the sails or accidentally jibe, how to react in a gust. I sail now conscious of sounds and movement. I feel the tension of the shroud as the wind increases, the slight lift of the rail. These things aren't in books and can't be easily explained. You need to learn from experiencing it.

Howard

I first got hooked on "boating" as a small child with three older brothers, and a father that loved the water, and canoeing. One of my first memories is of climbing down the cellar stairs so that I could go boating in the garage. We'd had a hurricane and the basement had enough water in it that the brothers were launching the canoe! I was told I was too young and sent back upstairs. Years later my uncle took me sailing in a cute little wooden mono he had up in Maine. I was smitten. Not long after that I bacame friends with Danny Grinspoon. His father was into sailing, and had a Sunfish that he'd cartop to a local lake. That was it! Some years later my mother got us a Sunfish. It got a little use initially, but the teen years were not weathered well in my family, and I opted to sail with friends on their families boats instead. When I was in my late twenties I pulled the Sunfish out of storage, and started sailing every chance I got. I'd seen cats and always dreamed of sailing on one, but the opportunity didn't come along until 1995. I ended up getting an ancient H14 and taking it down to Gooseberry to sail. I shared the boat with a coworker. It wasn't a good 2 man boat. Later that summer, I ran into Fleet 448 at their annual Island Hop. We brought the 14 down to sail with them a few times, and I ended up crewing to get lessons from some of the H16 sailors.Dan Christiensen(?) was a great teacher. I was fully hooked! These days I dream of getting back to the water as resposibilities have pulled me away...

One fine day on a Northsea beach in Belgium, at low tide...Someone took me out on a landyacht...The acceleration was thrilling, I had sand and salt water all over me, in my ears, my nose, my eyes, my hair...It was the messiest sport you could imagine, while at the same time super spectacular. I was sold. We had a little club and I think the social community around that club was key for me (as a 14 year old) to stick around.
The transition to cats happened when I moved to NY City and we found an old P19 in a marina /latin dance club up in Harlem, right by the George Washington Bridge...

The boat aspect was genetic (my father built and helped build several powerboats in the 50's). I was behind the wheel from my earliest memories. We boated sheltered lakes in the Ozarks for smooth water and water skiing, very few sailboats were around. In my early 20's, still skiing/powerboating, but on Kansas lakes, I sought a ride on a co-workers' H16. While double trapped, on a screaming reach I encountered a textbook pitchpole (in retrospect I think Gordon did it on purpose). This was Sunday, the following Tuesday evening I bought a new H16. Three weeks later, with some reservations on our part, we went to our first regatta. Gordon explained, "This is what we do with Hobies".
From the beginning I was fortunate to have Gordon, plus lots of people at regattas to quiz for answers. I also broke my share of parts exploring/learning on my own.