First boat - what was yours

[The Bigfella]

Here's a shot of my first boat:


Well, I didn't own her, but she was the first boat that I raced. Sponge Kate was (may still be for all I know) a 12' Kittycat - designed by a Kiwi - Jim Young. Sail area 120' plus a nice shy kite. It looked set to dominate the trans-Tasman 12' Interdominion racing - so of course the slow-boat sailors had it banned. I've still got the plans for one.

Sponge Kate was owned by a local pastrycook - who found it a bit hard getting up in the early hours of the morning to work - and then going sailing, so he kindly allowed my brother and I to sail and maintain her - my introduction to varnishing.

This is a shot of her at the Australian titles on the Swan River in Perth around 1970. My brother on trapeze. I started sailing her not long after. A fabulous boat that we had no hesitation in taking offshore in conditions that probably wouldn't be allowed these days. I can remember being out there and not being able to see boats 50 metres away when the swells came through.

What was your first boat?

[P.L.Lenihan]

No picture,no fond memories and no story but it was a Laser I bought directly at the plant here in Montreal (Performance Sailcraft) through a buddy who worked there. This was in 1973......yikes time flies!!!!

Thanks for your interesting tale Bigfella!

Peter

[John B]

P class trainer. well before opti's were conceived
http://www.kyc.org.nz/index.php?disp...itle=P%20Class



mine was P644 and that was when I was 12.
The first one I went out and bought with my own money was this old thing.

which morphed into this

then this.

only took 20 years. sad really.

[Wild Wassa]

First boat ever? I crewed a Flying Fifteen, when I was 20. We spent what felt like the entire first season stalled. I wish I knew then, what I know now, about driving a Fifteen.

Warren.

[John B]

Jim Young( incidentally) went on to a long and stellar career as a designer in NZ. His boats feature through the 1950's, 1960's and 70's and in the '80's they became leading edge planing keel boats such as the rocket 31, precursors to the common sports boats of today. One of his designs , the Young 88, is one of only a few national keel class designs still recognised as a racing class in NZ today.
One of his early boats was his interpretation of LFH's 'sailing machine' complete with canting keel !and quite a few of his NZ37 class boats from the sixties were exported to California.

[The Bigfella]

I found a site earlier about the Kittycat being updated - it went out of favour after 30 or so years due to its short length. It was upgraded with the same hull shape to a 14 footer, carrying 150 square feet and one or two trapezes. Called the Kitty 4000

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:...n&ct=clnk&cd=2

First I'd heard of it.

[rbgarr]

My dad and his neighbor built two Turnabouts in 1950, two years before I arrived on the scene. What little piglets those boats were, but Irving Johnson carried one aboard Yankee around the world, so....

Two Hagerty Sea Shell pram kits, one for use as a dinghy (which launched itself from the station wagon roof top on the highway before ever touching water, yet lived a long and fruitful life) and a sailing version for me, which I turned in to a little 'speedboat' with a three hp '63 Johnson and wheel in the bow aft of a vestigial fore deck. Not very fast, but I loved that thing. Took her everywhere I could in the shallow bays of Osterville, Cape Cod. Golden halcyon days even though I got infected blisters on my nose and shoulders from the sun. No SPD in the 60s and zinc oxide was for sissies. I'll pay for it some day, I imagine.

http://www.santabarbara.com/communit...ons/seashells/

[bamamick]

a brand new Sunfish. I think that I was 18. I car-topped it on my 1965 Mustang. My second boat was a fibreglass Windmill built by Newport. Heavy boat with a wooden mast. We (my Lightning skipper and I) put a new rig in her and sailed her around the south (Southerns, Midwinters, districts). I think that the Windmill was where I developed the inclination to do my own thing.

I can't even remember all of the boats that I've owned now. It's been a long bumpy road and it doesn't appear to be getting any easier, but I don't think that there's much I would have done differently.

Mickey Lake

[S/V Laura Ellen]

The first boat that I owned was a McVay Bluenose.

[Brian Palmer]

A Bolger Elegant Punt I built when I was 14. I rigged it with a donated Dyer Dhow mast and sail. Many adventures and misadventures followed until I sold it 5 years later and built a 15 foot sharpie.

--Brian

[Popeye]

a 10 1/2' aluminum brand-name boat , might have been sears or something similar, not sure , with a 4 Hp evinrude and a 2 gallon tank of premix , tied off nicely on a roof rack on top of the dodge dart , homemade mushroom anchor and a pair of oars for rowing

[hokiefan]

My first boat was a 17' canvas covered kayak my Dad and I (mostly my Dad) built from a Boy's Life reprint. Dimensions more like a covered canoe, 36" beam and a big open cockpit that sat 2 plus a little one. I had a lot of fun with that boat.

Learned to sail at Boy Scout camp on a Windmill. First larger sailboat I sailed on was a 23' Westerly Pagent that my friends' family had.

Bobby

[Thorne]

Learned to sail various boats on Mercer Island and the Sound in '76-77, but the first boat I OWNED was/is a Colman Ram-X 15' plastic canoe. Hauled that thing all over the Left Coast and western Canada, nicest trip was in Wells Gray park in BC. Still have it, use it as a loaner / tender / photo boat when a beater is needed.



First wooden boat was a disaster -- badly rotted ply Glen-L 17 -- came through the hull with a crowbar when I checked it for rot, sold it for the value of the trailer and hardware. All my other wooden boats (solid and ply) have been MUCH nicer -- seems I learned something from that first bad experience.

;0 )

[David G]

My first boat was an 8' pram. My dad gave it to me for my 10th birthday. Friend of my dad's built it, then got sick and never used it. They owned a plywood mill, so it was naturally made of fir plywood. It came with an almost new 1957 Evinrude Lightwin 3.0. I still have the motor, and plan to rebuilt it to use as a backup. The boat was painted an industrial grey. I promptly painted a metallic blue maltese cross to mark the spot where a rower would sit.

I loved that boat, and fishing out of it for trout and crappie. For 6 years I was constantly harassing dad, mom or older bro' to help me toss it in a pickup and drive me to one of the lakes. Eventually I got into surfing and passed the boat on to my nephew. After 20+ years at his place - getting lots of use and living outside w/too little maintainance - it finally fell apart on the bro's dock.

Seeing that old motor hanging in my shop - even if it's not currently functional - brings back a variety of fond and funny memories.

"Memory feeds imagination" -- Amy Tan

[gert]

[nedL]

My first boat was a 14 foot fairly non-descript plywood, outboard runabout / rowboat which had washed up on the front property of friends of our family's; complete with a good complement of varying size holes in her bottom. Soon after its' beaching it was slated to be the centerpiece of a beach clearing driftwood bonfire. After making a sufficient number of appeals to the 'Dad' of the house I secured a stay of execution though the weekend for her. At home that night, a similar number of appeals to my mom & dad persuaded them to agree to let me have it. We didn't have any sort of a trailer at the time, and it was to big to put in the back of the family station wagon so my dad went to talk to “Al Macque” the owner of the local service station, who let us borrow his pickup truck. The boat made a safe and uneventful trip home in the bed of the truck. As for the holes in her bottom; the following Sunday morning, after church & Sunday school Mom & I stopped by “Marine Lumber” (local Oceanside lumberyard that also back then carried legit. Boatbuilding materials) to purchase what couldn’t have been more than a quarter sheet of their ‘best, hole patching plywood’. By the time we got home Dad already had the bucket of roofing tar out and appropriate nails ready. It wasn’t long before we had her bottom all patched up and everything ready for paint. After a trip to the basement we had mixed together a sufficient number of odd partial cans to come up with a nice barn red for the hull (in & out), and a sort of robin’s egg blue for her foredeck, floorboards, and seats.
It was decided she would be kept on a small tidal creek about two blocks from our house where I could walk to whenever I wanted. When it came time for her launching, she was placed on our yard wagon (remember – no trailer) and my brother, sister, and I pulled her the two blocks to the water – with Mom & Dad in he car behind us as an escort. As I remember, she was slipped into the water without ceremony. I kept her in a mud slip we dug into the side of the creek, and chained her to an old pipe my dad drove into the bank.
She ‘never leaked a drop’ and I enjoyed her for a good six summers. The last time I checked, that old pipe my dad drove into the bank was still there. I was eight that year when I got my first boat.

[willmarsh3]

I took sailing lessons when I was young. I got my first boat when I was 29 - a Catalina 25. I have always liked being on the water and seeing new places. This boat suited me fine for exploring the Chesapeake. I learned a lot about sailing, handling rough weather, boat maintenance, navigation, and life in general. It and subsequent boats have led me into many things that I otherwise would not have gotten into.

[JimD]

Cedar strip and canvas canoe.

[Bruce Hooke]

Almost certainly, the first boat I was in was a wood-canvas canoe that my father had rebuilt a few years earlier. We don't know who built that canoe, but based on the construction (closed gunwales) it probably dates from before 1920, so by the time I got my introduction to boats in that canoe (at the age of about 3 months), it was at least half a century old. My parents still own and use that canoe.

The raft shown below might count as the first boat that was truly mine (and my cousins (the caption is incorrect, that is my cousin with me in the picture, but my sister did also help build the raft)). We built it from driftwood on the coast of Maine.



Then there was the Glen-L Paddleboard I built from a kit (this is a stock photo from the Glen-L website):



However, I am not sure if a paddleboard counts as a boat and a raft might also be considered questionable. So, to get to something that was mine and that everyone would call a boat, we have to get to this 12' punt that I built to install a sculpture in graduate school:

[paladin]

"Mother's Worry".......about 400 Hp....caused a bit of stir in the family....the dude I sold it to didn't listen...made a mad run across the lake and chopped the throttle hard when he ran outta room....stern wave got him and sunk the boat in 10 feet of water...



stock Sanger pic

[leaotis]

12’ fibreglass Kingfisher sloop. I convinced my dad to buy this boat for our new cottage at Minnesott Beach NC. I was 16 and had never sailed before. Dad and I would go out with a “How to Sail” book, I hated the whole business… too many funny words. But I soon changed my mind about sailing.

[J. Dillon]

My first boat was shared by a few thousand other sailors. It was a 32' sailing ketch rigged whale boat. I told about it here before in the thread started by Paul Pless. .

The Korean war came along and it went back to some naval yard, sadly probably to rot away. Our supply officer aboard ship was a sailing nut and got us three Penguin class kits to build them ourselves during off duty hours on the "mess deck ". We completed two and used them in various ports of call in the Med. Also my first experience in capsizing.

In civilian life my first boat to build was a Snipe class 16' v bottom sloop . Back then they had 3/4" planking. Since then I built 7 other boats ranging up to 26 LOA.

JD

[Todd Bradshaw]

Ny first was a 17' fiberglass Indian Brand Canoe that I bought when I was 16. Nobody else in my family boated and my mom was sure I was going to drown. She was continually telling me third-hand stories of innocent folks who had been in canoes when they just rolled over out of the blue....



Three years later, I got my first rock and roll check and the first thing I did was order #2, which is a 16' Old Town Guide that I special ordered without a keel. I've been through a lot of canoes, kayaks and sailboats since then, but 35 years later I still own the Guide and just finished up some refurbishing work on it last weekend.

[DavidF]

I grew up in this Wm. English canoe. Fast under paddle and rigged for sail a demon to contend with. Most beautiful thing ever made. I caress her 27 coats of varnish (some 100 years old) every day.

[Tom Galyen]

The first sailboat that I ever sailed in was a Bullnose in Guantanamo Bay.

The first sailboat that I ever owned was a red and white 14-16 foot fiberglass scow with a "Curved Gaff" type of sail. It was a prototype built by a local company that was at the time making drones for the Navy, and wanted to expand into the civilian market. I only have an old faded Polaroid photo of her.

Tom G. (Seaweed)

[Dale H]

My first boat was a "Matilda 16". Canadian built by Ooyang Yachts in Ontario, she was quite tender, but very fast because of her flat run aft. Our family outgrew her so she was sold for funds to start our Eun Mara.

[almeyer]

First boat I built was a six-hour canoe. Followed a couple of years later with a Penobscot 14. Today I ordered plans for an Eun na Mara. Is there a trend here?
Al

[ahp]

My first was a 16 Old Town canoe, which I bought for $30. It was not in good shape, but I had it for years and rigged it for sailing. My second was a very elderly Snipe.

[Lew Barrett]

My first boat was a canvas covered half canoe, half kayak I bought from my next door neighbor for a dollar. It was February in New York, but I launched it in the slough in front of our house. there was ice in the slough. I got half way out from shore and noticed that the boat was shipping vast amounts of water. Ice cold water at that. By the time I made it back to shore, perhaps two minutes later, the boat was completely full.My neighbor refused to give me my dollar back.

My first real boat was a 15 foot '57 Chris Cavalier that I bought at a car auction on a whim. Complete on a trailer, it cost me $700. I refinished it in my garage, rebuilt the K block, and enjoyed it for two years. Thus started a life with wooden boats!

[Bob Adams]

An old flatbottom planked rowboat found in a swamp. My Father and I fixed it up and outfitted it with a donated 3 hp Evinrude that was older than the boat. Couldn't afford any better, but many good times were had aboard that scow. Memories still vivid now , 43 years later.

[Woodonwater]

I have to say, this is a great thread. We all get the passion for boating and especially wooden boats, thru unique circumstances. I am really enjoying hearing other's tales.

I had model boats as a kid, and always loved the water, but my love for wooden boats really solidified when I set foot on the grounds of the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle. It was on those docks that I decided wooden boats were a passion worthy of life long love and energy. I guess my first real boat was a baidarka I built myself at the Center. All steam bent and lashed together. Not a piece of metal on her, just as the Aleuts would have done. I will probably always have her.

[johngsandusky]

My father built a wood and canvas canoe from a kit when I was 4. He had a couple of other boats after, including a converted lifeboat. I built a glen-l topper when I was 26. Launching and sailing it was one of the best days of my life. I can still feel the magic.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Vaucluse Junior, a popular sharpie design here in Sydney with hiking planks like the IC.
Aluminium centerboard used to scream on the plane.
Trainer for most of the skiff clubs, I moved on to 12 foot skiffs when I was too heavy.

http://fly.to/veejay

[jwe7119]

i raked a ladys yard for her and she gave me a 10ft aluminum boat that fit in the bed of my truck that day i went and got some oars and down the bayou i went .... i only made it half way back up on my own steam. The next day i bought a electric trolling motor.

[Bobcat]

My first boat was an eight foot pram bought unpainted at the local Ernst Hardware for about $35 by my parents and given to me for my 8th birthday. We painted her white and blue and bought oars, which my mother likes to point out cost almost as much as the boat.

I had that boat, named the Wasp, for 20 plus years. I used her as a tender for my Highlander sloop and later to row out to my 23 foot schooner rigged surfboat. She lived outside on the beach or turned bottom up on the bank. And she looked as though she had a hard life because she did.

A limb from a fir tree came down in a windstorm and poked a hole in the bottom. Patch number one. A high tide took her off the beach and a rock put another crunch in the bottom for patch number two. She broke off the buoy when I was out overnight in the Highlander and I thought she was gone for good. She turned up on the dock in Friday Harbor -- someone had found her floating and towed her there. So I had a few more years with her.

By 20 or 22 years of age she was used up. We gave her a viking funeral on the beach.

[Clencher]

No comment needed

[The Bigfella]

Fabulous photo Clencher - are you still such a happy chappie?.

You know, this thread has brought back lots of earlier boating memories for me. Corrugated iron sheet canoes that used to always be found around dams in outback NSW, the old flat-bottomed punt that a mate had down the local creek in Coffs Harbour, Dad's f'glass canoe that we paddled around the creeks and rivers of NSW whilst birdwatching (and I was annoyed when he gave it away in his later years - I wanted it). The Moth that I had my first sailing experience on - when we took it out to check out a submarine anchored in the harbour at Coffs.

[WX]

An 8 ft corrugated iron canoe.

[Rational Root]

Someone had dumped 4 beer kegs near the river, so we found a wooden pallet, and added some rope and made a raft that we pushed up and down the river with a long pole.

Until Robbie placed the pole on a flat rock and it slipped out from under him.

Our first Man Over Board.

Our parents didn't see the funny side of Robbie being soaked head to toe.

They reckoned us messing about on the river was dangerous.

Hell at least we weren't stealing cars or doing drugs.

And it's not like we were playing at the waterfall or anything....

[UpScope]

My first boat was a Styrofoam Sears and Roebuck(?) sailing boat that my Dad gave me when I was about fourteen. The hull was a molded Styrofoam with out any type of covering on it, just bare Styrofoam. The hull was about 4" thick and tuff as steel, 12' long and 4' high. I don't remember what it was named but it had oar locks so it could rowed or sailed.

My compliments go to the Sears, Roebuck Co. because we abused that poor boat. We would row it and slam it into logs to catch turtles, sail it as hard as we could until the mast almost bent then flip it over in the middle of the lake and climb all over the overturned hull like it was a raft.

Sadly Dad sold the cottage and the boat went with it.

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

My first boat was wood



Filled the gaps with old Styrofoam

Next one was aluminum



Leaked like a strainer



First sailboat was the Sunfish's I sailed every summer up in lake George.

Moved up to this



Thank god I'm back to wood

[Brian Palmer]

It's not wood, but my two boys (9 and 6), just got their first boat. We bought one of the local canoe outfitter's used demo boats during their end of the season sale. Forgive me, please, but it is a plastic child-sized recreational kayak and a nice matching paddle, perfect for the local creeks and lakes. It will go well with the other canoes in our fleet.

I am sure many adventures and misadventures will follow.

--Brian

[john l]

the first boat i owned was a wooden 16' Comet Class by lippencot boat builders. it sailed great (they called it the little star). i remember the first time i put it in the water, i thought it was going to sink. bailed it out and a few hours later it was as tight as can be. i sold it about 16 years ago and recently the guy who bought it from me asked me if i wanted it back. if anyone is interested let me know.

[Clencher]

"Clencher - are you still such a happy chappie?."

Nah, I'm a grumpy old codger now. I was looking happy then as I'd just been scaring the daylights out of those U-boat skippers in my WW2 Armed Trawler.

The fact that I'd just won 2nd prize in a carnival and my trawler was mounted on a pair of old pram wheels has nothing to do with it.

[Kevin G]

My first boat was 17' New Haven Sharpie. My father bought it for us on Grand Avenue, Fair Haven section of New Haven, where the design originated. It was not rigged for sailing, and we had an old 5hp Johnson on it for power, that and an old pair of oars got us everywhere we wanted to go. When I about 14, I dropped the motor off the back end and never was able to retrieve it, so I had to find enough money for another. I found an old 2hp Evinrude Elto and we were back in business. That thing ran forever, just sipping gas amd blowing smoke. I would go out for the day and return when the mood struck. Mom never worried, she had four others to look after.Lots of fun, that boat, but I have no pictures.

KMG

[jonsailr]

My first was an 8 ft pram. Shortly after my parents bought some new rug(s) and they used to come wrapped around bamboo poles, which became a mast and yardarm for a dropcloth sail, a maiden voyage across the Shrewsbury River, in NJ. Thus my friend and I learned the need for a centerboard, or daggerboards, as we got towed back across the river to home

Later a Turnabout, a Larry Olsen (Middletown, NJ) built Blue Jay, some years later a 24' Yugoslavian built double ended sloop called a Viking, then this Carl Alberg designed, wooden 30 footer:
http://www.alberg30.org/CarlAlberg/WoodenBoats/Alestra/

[BrianW]

Mine was a 24ft Fibersnot from the '70s. So ugly, Joe had to photoshop it out of a picture I posted here. I won't sour this thread with a photo. (good thing ya didn't ask in the Bilge.)

I'm completely ignorant to the sailing world, but willing to learn.

[ron ll]

Others mentioned styrofoam boats; anyone remember the KOOL boats? It was some promotional deal by KOOL cigarettes, and altho I didn't smoke, I managed to get the required carton ends or whatever along with $80 and sent away for it. It was like a Sunfish, but had no coating on the styrofoam and the sail was green/white with a large "KOOL" on it. Kind of like sailing a styrofoam icechest, but it provided a summer of fun on Greenlake.

[AlanL]

Excluding various canoes, dinghies, and assorted raft like constructions my first boat was a Flying Ant (designed by John Spencer) called Chantelle at Taipa. I was 13 at the time. It was a great little yacht with a nifty spinnaker launcher which meant I could get out on my own and sail with all the sails set - lotsa fun planing with the wind in the right quarter

After that my next personal larger boat was an 18 foot ex-tug built in Totara North 80 years previous when I was 14. It had triple skin kauri and ran with a Standard 10 and car gearbox when I got it A year later I put a little single banger 12hp Petter diesel and Parsons gearbox, prop shaft, thrust bearing, propeller,...

[Varna]

Great to read these threads of everyones boating beginnngs.

My first sailing experiences were right after my folks' divorce -my mom's
boyfriends' homebuilt daysailing trimaran in '64. The cool thing to do for my brother and sisters viewpoint was to hold the shroud out on an ama- from a semi-submerged leward side to flying on the weather side. Somehow they got me out there and I was terrified and ended up in tears
and screaming... I was 6 then .. my happy intro to sailing world ;-)
In '67 or '68 my mom bought me a Naples Sabot, which was a ply hulled boat built on the island around '60. Already most were glass by then, Even then I started right out with wood, but still in 60's wooden boats were of course very common everywhere. That Sabot was my first all-mine boat and I really loved it and had great times cruising Alamitos Bay and eating the great Burgers at Christman's on the peninsula, then hoppin'in and cruising back to base on the island and then doing my paper route. Very Fond memories of those innocent Tom Sawyerish days. What luck...