First Boat?

With all the talk of the Opti-killer, etc.. It would be fun to learn from everyone "What was the first boat you learned to sail on, and at what age?"

And/or as a follow-up "What was the first sailboat you actually owned?"

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.

The first sailboat I bought was an Interlake, 18' monohull day-racer.

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.

First sailed on a Sunfish with my Dad around age 5 or so. Got in a little big-boat monohull cruising in high school. Began racing Hobie 16s right after college. First boat purchased was a Mystere 4.3 from Mike Fahle in 2001 or so. I'm only on my second beach cat.

I think the first sailboat I was on was a Melges X Boat at summer camp. I don't know for sure, all I have is foggy memories from when I was nine and it looks about right from what I remember. The first boat I owned was a Sunfish, then a 85' H16, 06' H16, 83' H14, 04' FXone. All this in less than five years.

First thing I sailed was a windsurfer after the sailing school said I was too young at 9; came back the next year with a short board and showed them how to do it!

Then did some squad stuff in Toppers, 420's / Larks and the like and also crewed on a Dart 18; then helmed for my dad on a Dart 18 and then bought the boat off Dad.

First boat I really bought was a Hurricane 5.9.

I was 26 or so, when I learnt sailing on an "Ixylon" (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixylon). It is a strange boat, buildt in the former "German Democratic Republic", the communist eastern part of Germany. In this time it was forbidden to sail on the sea, because it could be used to escape. However I learnt on it after the end of the cold war in Bulgaria on the the black sea.
First boat I owned was a Dart 18. Today I sold it...

I seem to be coming at this from the other end of the scale: my first experience of sailing was on a Hobie Wave on the last day of a Carribean holiday aged 41 (no, not 14). Based on that experience, I bought a Dart 16, Dart 18, Nacra 6.0, and Spitfire in rapid succession over three and a half years. Sailed the Spitfire for three seasons, and now have a Shadow. I wish I'd started a lot earlier!

Hobie 14 (presumably, I was only 12 back in 1982, in NZ... ) was the first sailing boat I ever sailed on. I remember my dad kept complaining about the awful tacking, but I was hooked from that moment on.

Later I learned to sail properly on a Bruynzeel "Valk", at around age 25.

First boat I ever bought was a Foacon Efsix (www.efsix.nl) type keel boat.

My first boat was a Hobie 16. Local radio station and Hobie Fleet was giving rides for the March of Dimes. For $10 you got a ride and a T-Shirt, money went to them. That was 1979, I bought the boat and have been hooked ever since. I went from C fleet to A fleet in a year and a half on that boat!! So John, was the 4.3 a good trainer for the new boats? Still want to get a Blade.

Doug

ditto here, went from zero to Hobie 16 <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hmmmm.... let me think.

First boat I EVER sailed on?? Not a clue, I was WAY too young to remember that. Dad is a boat dealer and we grew up with all kinds of "toys". I know the fist boat I sailed by myself was a foam "snark" I think at ~10. I got a sunfish at 11, started racing on a Soverel 33 at 13, got a Star at 16. Somewhere in there we had a H16 and I bought a P-18-2 in college. I've sailed/owned more boats than I could even even try to list. Last two were H20 and N6.0.

I'm currently boatless for the first time since 11 (except for my 32" RC) and am trying to figure out what to put in that slot. I20 or..... "other" <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I sailed on a freinds Nacra 5.8 as crew, next week I bought a TheMightyHobie18. I had never sailed before. Still learning how to sail.

E-Scow

then H16

Owned a Kiwi 24

11' styrofoam Sea Snark when I was 16 yrs old. Think "unsinkable floating bathtub with sail" and you'll have the right picture. Mine came with a Kool cigarette sail (used), but I loved it so much that I bought a new sunburst sail. It's scary now how far out in the Gulf of Mexico I went in that thing!! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

Learned how to sail on a sunfish at a church camp on Lake Webster outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana on a Monday in late July of '72. I had just turned 14. 4 years later the camp director and I cut lunches all week to have our own regatta.

Just bought my first; a Hobie 18 magnum last November. Rev Bob Dexter: come to FL and lets go sailing!!!

was given a soft and blown out 78 hobie 14 in trade for some work on a friends house... first time i ever sailed by my self... 3 time on the water i was racing at a regatta,,, didn't even get across the starting line..... lol... have had a super cat 17 twice, anouther hobie 14 and a supercat 19... ohh and bought my dad a sunfish for his lake behind the house...

I was on a small beach in Nevada City Ca. At Scotts Flat Lake...When here came a guy "Flying a hull" it was a old blue H-16. He stopped at our beach and asked if I had a cigarette..gave him one, took a ride,fell in love with it, and a week later I owned that boat ! yes I paid far too much for it but never regreted doing it ! That was 30 years ago..a lot of boats, wonderful memories, great mates,and money...only wish I knew where he was so I could thank him.

A Scorpian was my first other then a 26" mono that I do not know what is was. Then to a 14' Mcgregor Cat with aluminum rudders. What as dog in the water. Not wanting anymore dogs, I built a Tornado. Interesting progression, steep learning curve.

First sailing experience 1976 week long vacation on Mission Bay with family, guys next door from Phoenix brought there H16 I spent several hours on that boat with them. Got back to NM and somehow, never really thought much about it until about 7 years ago, My wife and I took a weekend trip back to Mission Bay (stayed at the Dana Inn) rented a 12' something or another and scarred the crap out of her. 2 years later took the entire family back to MB (GOD I love that place) and rented a condo for the week. rented a P19 ended up flipping it on the far north end of the bay. Lost all kinds of goodies to the bottom of the bay. Thanks to the guys on the black H16 with a shark mouth graphic either on the main or on the hulls for your help getting it back up right and making sure my daughter was ok!!!

First boat I bought 2 years ago, 71 or 72 H16. and am now waiting on a possible h17 as well, should know about it next week.

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.

I started on monohulls. A J30 if I am not mistaken. First boat I owned was a hobie 18. I paid 1700 hundred for it that I borrowed from my grandmother.

My cousin owns a house on Webster. You wouldn't believe how much the lake has grown in the past couple years. Real Estate is booming like no other.

I started out on a sunfish at the tender age of 9. Maybe 10.

My grandmother grew up sailing on Maxinkukee and was one of the early junior fleet champions. Well Uncle Charlie was, but she crewed. Anyhow when I was 9/10 she turned me loose on a used sunfish and told me to teach myself.

She sent me out in white caps and I turtled about 50 times that day, I've been hooked ever since. I just bought my beater H16 in August. Right out of college before I'd even started paying my debts.

Does a surfboard count? No?

OK, Hobie wave that is my father in law's. Sailed it last Saturday in Sanibel...

I just got an old TheMightyHobie18 that I'm cleaning up right now--whoever suggested Barkeeper's Friend made a good call!

Dan

Ryan, What was your grandmother's family name? I may know them. I have a lot of ties to Culver; the academy and the community, and Lake Maxinkuckee. I graduated from the Culver Summer Naval School in '77.

I've sailed that home-built Sailfish many times on that lake, along with all the variety of boats the academy has had over the years (they now have a large fleet of Interlakes as trainers), including their 65' three-masted square-rigger.


I'll add here that my point to starting this thread was... Any beginner boat that inspires a love of sailing has done
it's job. From Snark to keelboat, it doesn't matter, as long as it was there. Although it's interesting, not one respondent has mentioned Optimists.

Her mother's family name was Failey and her father was Barnaby. Both were on the East shore.

After college she didn't go back up to the lake until 1995, when she acquired a share of the Failey cottage.

In the 70s and 80s that some of her younger cousins would have been been the only ones using the Failey cottage.

I don't recall the Faileys. On the east shore, I have known the Kelleys, Wests, Osbornes, and my brother-in-law rented a house there for several summers. Real estate and taxes there have really boomed recently too. Some friends on long point have had to sell their house last year because they can't afford the taxes.

Hobie 18 at age 26. I was crew for a 14 year old who had his own h-18. 2 yrs crewing 8yrs on my own 18 and now i got a tiger.

Mine was a $600 Merrimack 14, looked like a rowboat but with a cat rig sail and no oars. I paid for it myself with money I'd saved. No lessons, no kid's programs, I bought a book, "This is Sailing" and figured it out. The next season I met a guy who raced Flying Scotts, who told me, "If you race you will learn 10x more in one year than you would by just dinking around..."

So I bought a Flying Scott and started racing with those guys and been racing ever since. I don't know how to cruise...but after 30+ years racing I think I'd like to learn! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Read 3 pages from the Funk & Waganall with my dad and rented an Aqua Cat in 1967 scoured the papers and found a used one for $400, then upgraded to a Pacific Cat a couple years later found "rusting" at the local Yacht Club Erie PA. The first boat I bought was a Hobie 16 in '83. John

I can't remember whether I was 8 or 9 years old, but I really learned how to sail when I was sent out by myself on our pram-nosed dinghy and told, "Just don't run into any of the boats in the harbor."

That'll teach you fast which way to push the tiller! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

That same dinghy taught me how to row and how to run a small outboard motor.

I learned to sail on an El Toro--wooden hull and mast; my brother and I named it "Super Skid"...not sure why.

I can't understate this enough, the ENTIRE reason I got interested in sailing was because I watched the America's Cup on TV back when it was still in Newport and I was in junior high. The type of boat made absolutely no difference to me at that point, because I had no family experience with sailing, etc., I just wanted to get on the water.

I have no idea what it was called, but the first boat I sailed on was a small wooden mono at Boy Scout camp. It wasn't an Opti, it had a triangular mainsail (no jib) and could hold two teenage kids.

I sailed on a 420 briefly (OK, once) in college in upstate NY. It was a day to let freshmen try out different clubs. The a-hole club member on the boat with me didn't let me touch ANYTHING. Needless to say, I never went back.

A few years later, at my second college, I was in Newport and there was a waiting list for the sailing class, and for the sailing team. I decided to buy a boat. I had a roommate who had previously re-glassed a Laser, so I bought what I was told was a Hobie 16 for $300.

This was a wooden Hobie 16, and I didn't find out my (now obvious) mistake until the money was spent. I proceeded to waste several hundred more dollars and made a huge mess in the garage, and the boat never saw the water.

Eventually, I just broke down and bought a real Hobie 16 (a 1983), probably around 1991.

Boats I've owned:

1983 H16 (yellow, destroyed by Coast Guard, another long story)
1983 H16 (blue, first cat I raced, got totally bitten by the bug)
1997 H16 (BRU Cat)
2001 H16
2006 H16

I've also sailed on H17, TheMightyHobie18, H18SX, H20, N6.0, M6.0, and even a J24. I don't like any of them more than the H16. The spinnaker experience on the H18SX scared the daylights out of me, because we couldn't see around the sail...

Mike

First time sailing was when I was in my teens. I was main breast-stroker on the swimming team and the best backstroker friend of mine decided to build a canoe.
We mounted a sail and leeboard on it and sailed on a small lake near Akron, Ohio. Got across the lake and was becalmed. But, we had paddles.., so no problem.
That did NOT impress me about sailing.
I was attending Long Beach State College, living in Belmont Shore and my roomy and I were laying on the beach studying. Along came a power boat and put out a mark. Then there came some really teeny, slow boats that went around it and headed back from whence they came.
Then a funny looking, two hulled thing came roaring up, rounded it quickly and roared back from whence it came.., much, much faster. The first were Sabots, the latter was a Malibu Outrigger.
That experience made me buy a Shark Catamaran in 1965, and the day I took delivery I sailed in a regatta at Mentor Harbor YC, Mentor, Ohio.
We were dead last, and I noticed this beautiful, bikini-clad girl helming another Shark. They were dead first.., every time. I told my buddy, we have to follow them and do everything they do.., plus the scenery would be great.

That was when I met Mary Wells.., married her many years later. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Rick

My first experience of sailing was in high school on a friend's home built Mirror on Lake Titicaca in Bolivia. I sailed again on another Mirror during university in Ireland. When I got married my father-in-law had a Laser on Klerksdorp dam in South Africa so I sailed that quite a bit. That Laser was my first taste of a bit of speed on the water, although we had to wait for the wind generated by thunderstorms to get it planing. That taste of speed was what really got me interested. I sailed on and off over the years but never owned a boat. The first cat I sailed was on vacation in Mexico - probably a Wave. I thought I knew what I was doing but really only knew enough to be dangerous! But I did realise then that speed = cat. I sailed a cat again on the Swan River in Perth still not really knowing what I was doing. Last year I was fortunate enough to be based in Curacao for a year and took the opportunity to get some lessons from the team at Catsailing Curacao who, for the first time, taught me how to sail a cat properly and safely (thanks Iko!). I sailed almost every weekend on one of their Getaways. I progressed to the point where I could handle the boat on my own and almost bought a H16 but realised I was about to get transferred away from the island and decided to wait. I am now living in Reno and about to take delivery of a VWM Blade F16. I guess it will be a challenging step up from the Getaway but I'm really looking forward to getting to know the boat and hopefully racing before too long.

Took me a while to find these... my first boat, a P Class, circa 1974 at Baddeley's Beach north of Auckland. Generations of NZer's have learned to sail on these.

Learned to sail on a Sunfish in Stone Harbor, NJ, this was during the Johnson Administration. Went on to by a Sunfish at age 14, and kept until AMF came out with the Force 5 – then got one of those. Sold that when I moved to CA to go to college, and after college bought a Prindle 18 classic. I had it three weeks before it was broadsided by a car, and then got another one. This was a blessing as Surfglass went from the fiberglass lay up to the foam core and the new boat was foam core construction which IMO was a better boat. Since then, I have owned another 18 classic, an 18-2, Prindle 16, and a NACRA 5.8NA.

Currently have a Force 5 for harbor sailing with my son, and may pick up another Prindle 18-2 for some local distance racing.

I wonder how many folks on the list we first introduce to sailing on a Sunfish.

OK, to answer the "first sail" question. My brother-in-law built his own super sunfish, don't know exactly with what rig and really didn't care because I was only 11, and a waterskier. He took me out on a little lake and I soon learned why he was so adamant about me going with him...he needed my chubby little butt to keep it flat. I understood what getting on plane was, but not happy about the physical exersion required to hike out flat. My impression was, this going for a ride on a sailboat involved entirely too much work.
Thirteen years later I got my second sailboat ride, double trapped on a Hobie 16. The skipper buried it and it is to this day probably the quickest picthpole I've ever encountered. I popped up from underwater and shouted "Let's do that again!" Three days later I bought a brand new one <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hey Rick,
we'll have to ask Mary about that swimming team thing,I'd say you had the better job than you're buddy <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />just kidding...
First sailing was with my dad on a LS13 (Chrysler)
then he got an Aqua cat..he passed away when I was 13(1973)
and I got into motocross on a TM 125 here in Michigan.
pulled that Aquacat out of the backyard in 2000 and actually sailed it at BurtLake..completly refurbished it as a 14 with new hulls,sails,rudders and fittings,sold it and bought a 450 Nacra from The Cat house(Mark Biggers) in Michigan..lotsa fun <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Tornado...age 7 or 8 crewing for my Dad in Montreal.

Guess that explains why I can't every get used to mono's...never liked the leaning feeling (and of course the lack of speed ;-)