what did you learn to sail on????

[Warren Milberg]

In 1969, I was just back from Vietnam. Picked up a copy of local paper and saw an ad "Learn to Sail." Called the guy up and met him for my first lesson that day. His boat was a small Alacrity and didn't have much performance. Two weeks later, I bought a Snipe and really learned how to sail -- and race -- on that wonderful one-design.

 

[WayneH]

Wow, that brought back memories.

Must have been 45 years ago. My uncle had a place in San Leon, TX right on Galveston Bay. In his garage was this old wooden sailboat hull and rudder. No mast, no boom, no sail. With a little help from mom and an old bed sheet, I made a mainsail for it. Mast and boom from a scrap pile of wood. And away I went. I didn't need leeboards or daggerboards for this boat as I was just about all it could float. For a while. Because it wasn't watertight at all. So I would sail around the piers until it was just about sunk before jumping out and wading back to shore to dump the water out and start over.

Yeah, that's when I got hooked on sailing. Much later in life, I bought an AMF Sunbird as my first non-sinking sailboat. Wife, kids, and life got between me and sailing until I met my second wife. She sails with me even though she is terrified of what might be swimming in the water that she can't see. And now she wants a bigger boat to go farther.

 

[aduffE37]

1984 g-cat 5.0

 

[pno2ner]

Many years ago on the Delaware River between Philly and Chester on a Cape Dory 10. Learned how to avoid oil tankers, deal with their wakes, read water and wind and sail as flat as I could. (didn't like hand bailing) Crewed on some friends' boats in SF Bay. Life intervened for 30-some years until I got my Catalina 22MkII.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Beetle catboats in summer camp in western Mass. Best thing I learned, the hard way: "Never cleat off your mainsheet on a small boat!" Didn't sail again after 1963 when camp ended and work intervened. Moved to San Francisco in '78, rented boats from Cass in Sausalito for a few years, bought our first boat, a C22, in 1983, moved up to a C25 in '87, and our C34 in '98.

As many have mentioned, lessons and racing are great ways to learn more. I also agree that it's always a learning experience. That's what makes it so much fun for me, there's always something new to learn and each sail, whether a daysail or a longer trip, is an adventure - in a positive way!

 

[HEINZIR]

Learned basics on borrowed Sunfish, then bought a Sears Jetwind (plastic covered foam Sunfish wannabe.)

Went on our honeymoon in St. Thomas in 1974. Our hotel hooked us up with a 43' charter boat that was willing to take us out for the day for $25. They took us to Sandy Key (no other boats were there at that time.) The captain taught us to snorkel at Sandy Key while his mate prepared a gourmet lobster lunch. We were hooked! Sold the Jetwind and bought a Venture 21 -- the biggest boat I could afford at the time. Used it for a year, then bought a Venture 23 which we still own. Actually, Chiquita owns us.

Fast forward 25 years. We wanted to do something special for our 25th anniversary. We decided to try our first bareboat charter in the BVIs. We chartered a 43' boat and sailed to Sandy Cay; much more crowded this time. It was a real thrill to go there on our "own" boat -- at least one I was captain of. I got a great picture of Marie and I kissing on the beach that is identical (almost) to the picture from 1974.

We had considered this to be a once in a lifetime adventure but it was so much fun we went back 5 more times!

 

[catsailor]

Prindle 16 (catamaran).

I had just watched the Hobie 16 Nationals, sailed off the beach in Cape May, New Jersey, in Identical factory supplied new boats. It was a spectacle.

I read a book and worked my way into it slowly, without too much drama. No lessons. A few thunderstorms, to show me who was boss in clear terms.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Stu...You won't believe this...

Beetle catboats in summer camp in western Mass.... Didn't sail again after 1963 when camp ended and work intervened.

I learned to sail on Beetles at a sailing camp in Western MA--a girls' sailing camp on Cape Cod--in the summer of '63. I was hired to be a counselor/activities director (camp fire sings, parents day show etc etc) and put in charge of a cabin full of 14 yr olds who'd been coming to Camp Cowasset since they were 7 & 8. Sitting at the table with 'em for the first couple of meals was like listening to a foreign language--sheets, booms, halyards, jibes...I was totally clueless. So I asked the maintenance guy to bring me on his next trip into town any book on salling that had a glossary of terms and some basic diagrams...He brought me back the Popular Mechanics Book of Small Craft Sailing and spent my free time learning a new language. After a couple of days, I was actually able to ask an intelligent question or two...and when my girls discovered I was interested, they offered to take me out in a beetle and teach me a little about sailing basics in their free time... The camp had 3 Beetles...Winken, Blinken and Beetlebomb (Nod had sunk in a storm a couple of winters earlier). The two most important thing I learned that summer was "coming about, hard alee" is sailing-speak for "DUCK!"

 

[stephen Penny]

In the early 80’s I purchased/raced a 16 ft catamaran on the east coast, took up wind surfing and then charted a 37 ft Siedleman from a charter fleet in the Chesapeake Bay. It cost $50/day during the frost-bit season (Nov 1 – May 10). At that time the only requirement was that I could get the sailboat in and out of the marina slip without an incident. It was not until late last year that I purchased my first sailboat. My only regret is that I should have done it earlier as it is really a blast and my new sailboat friends are great.

 

[BobT]

About 1968 my Dad and I built an 8' pram from a kit as a tender for his power boat. the following year we got the sail kit for it and I spent the next few summers prowling the Elk River in it. I was about 14. The best summers ever. That is, until I got another boat of my own!!

 

[stevec22206]

First sailed 1968, 28' E Scow and then a home built Y Flyer. 42 years later I'm on my third boat, a Catalina 27.

 

[Paul F]

12' Butterfly on the Mississippi River, on Lake Davenport - with only one direction to go up-stream, lol.

 

[JerryA]

Precision 13

I started in 2004 with a Precision 13 that I purchased at an auction.

JerryA

 

[Joel H.]

Sunfish, then 14ft Hobie Cat

 

[arknoah]

Actually, a better question might be “on what are you still learning,” since I’m really new at this. My ASA sailing classes were held on a C&C 29, after which I purchased a little 17 foot racing-type sailboat. When my family decided they actually liked sailing, we decided to buy a MacGregor 25, which we just stored for the winter a month ago.

We’ll continue our learning process next season on the MacGregor.

 

[Prime Time]

What I learned on.

Tylercraft
Pearson Coaster
Bristol 40
Cape Dory 10

 

[BrotherB]

Theory was sailingtexas.com, and YouTube. The hands-on, however, was when I took that theory and put it to work on the Cat22 I bought; 24 hours of solo sailing on a nice inland lake my very first time to be on a sailboat was awesome.

 

[Anchor Down]

I Smile Every Time…

This, ladies and gentlemen, is an Enterprise 14: marine plywood w/ mahogany half-deck/rails, and a centerboard housing for the swing keel. Mine looked like this one, with the traditional blue paint, only it had white sails and spruce spars.

A retired high school woodshop teacher had bought the plans, and built it himself, and it was beautiful. There are still active racing fleets in the UK, but over here the Lido 14 was king.

Beautiful, isn't she?

I had been crewing on my friends 34' coastal cruiser for a couple of years and had been reading Bob Bond's The Handbook of Sailing and Eric Hiscock's Voyager series. Then I bought my own place and finally had a garage.

A few body-ballast miscalculations and a capsizes, including one pretty hairy broach, in the local bay, and I was a sailor. I danced two summers with that first mistress.

Then the Catalina 22 that I coastal cruised for a 250-mile loop up the coast and around the California Channel Islands. Three years with her.

Then I saved like a dog until I self-delivered my current yacht, a Catalina 30, single-handed up the coast from San Diego to Long Beach (95% of that trip engineless & w/ no auto-pilot).

The disease progresses…

 

[Smithy]

My first sail was on a Sunfish on a little lake in west Texas. From there, I graduated to a 14' daysailer in Mission Bay, and kept bluffing my way up the food chain, until I hit the Cat 250's. That's about as much as I care to singlehand in San Diego bay.

 

[Freedom77]

Bought a Venture 21 in 1969. Great little boat for learning. Traded up to a '71 V-222 and then to '76 V-25 Freedom. Still Learning every time I go out.