In the early 80s, my parents bought a Grampian 23 with the rare fin keel. I never cared for that boat, but I managed to finagle a minifish out of the deal. It came sans rig, but a used sunfish mast fit in the hole in the deck. This led to a very over canvassed boat that led to quite a few adventures in just keeping her upright with 100 pounds of breathing ballast.
I only had the boat a couple of years before I turned to competitive rowing in High School, but it paved the path for many boats since.
The year was 1951 and the boat was a Cockeast Pond Pondboat built by F. L. Tripp's boatyard in Westport Point, Massachusetts. She was a small flat-bottomed skiff designed as a class boat for racing on Cockeast Pond, a brackish, sort of tidal pond in Westport Harbor. There were at that time at least a dozen sister-ships in the fleet. I learned to sail and then race in Flicker. As a teenager I was hired to run the racing program for kids on Wednesday afternoons and another for kids, often with their parents, on Saturday afternoons. I was called Commodore in exchange for a modest salary of about $40 a month if I recall correctly. The Marconi-rigged catboats carried a lot of sail and often capsized when the Buzzards Bay winds picked up in the afternoons. I used Flicker to give sailing lessons and earn some "real money" on the side. Happy times! The class has disappeared, alas. Today there are only a few small fiberglass sailboats occasionally on the pond and no organized racing that I have seen. And the old wooden Flicker? Gone for scrap wood years ago. Since then I've owned a lot of boats. I'm planning to sell a Pearson 303 and an original O'Day Daysailer this year and looking to get a small, comfortable, trailerable boat for my sunset years.
My first boat at age 10 was an old 14' closed bow wood Old Town (I think) strip planked skiff powered with an old Elgin 7.5 hp OB. Had a button on top you held down to engage the start rope. An uncle salvaged the boat from Jamaica Bay New York, and gave me the OB. Many fun vacation hours in the '50s crabbing and fishing alone, and with Dad, on the Metedeconk River on the Jersey shore. Lots of winter hours calking and painting each year. Good times. Have had an assortment of small power and sail since including two 12' row/sail/power now.
First boat was a Sunfish I learned to sail at Boy Scout camp. Definitely a wet sailer, but you could move fast in the gusts on the lake and capsizing was half the fun; you got to know just how far you could push it, and you knew that you could easily recover from a capsize by yourself. The feeling of moving fast next to the water without noise except the water and wind was what hooked me. And rigging was nearly instantaneous. My Suncat is the grown-up version, but I would not want to capsize her.
My very first boat was a Folbot lateen-rig kayak, but it was damaged in transit and had to be returned to the manufacturer. My first real boat was a Snark Wildflower. It claimed to be a sailboat, a powerboat, and a rowboat, but there were compromises made that hindered each of these abilities in real life. At 11-1/2 feet, with a 20-foot mast and a 100 sq. ft. sloop rig, it had a lot of sail power, which almost made up for the tri-hull bow that helped with power boat performance. It was terrible as a rowboat. I sailed that boat all over nearby Lake Whitney in central TX for almost 20 years. Sure, the plastic skin separated from the styrofoam core at the daggerboard well, and we had to do fiberglass work to repair it with little personal knowledge of how to do it. But that boat served me well for nearly 2 decades, and it was easy to set up, too. As I get older, I wish I had it back, but apparently there are NO Wildflowers for sale...EVER!
In the early 80s, my parents bought a Grampian 23 with the rare fin keel. I never cared for that boat, but I managed to finagle a minifish out of the deal. It came sans rig, but a used sunfish mast fit in the hole in the deck. This led to a very over canvassed boat that led to quite a few adventures in just keeping her upright with 100 pounds of breathing ballast.
I only had the boat a couple of years before I turned to competitive rowing in High School, but it paved the path for many boats since.
Three cheers for the Minimax - that was the first boat I built (also). The minimaxes are still being built.
The year was 1951 and the boat was a Cockeast Pond Pondboat built by F. L. Tripp's boatyard in Westport Point, Massachusetts. She was a small flat-bottomed skiff designed as a class boat for racing on Cockeast Pond, a brackish, sort of tidal pond in Westport Harbor. There were at that time at least a dozen sister-ships in the fleet. I learned to sail and then race in Flicker. As a teenager I was hired to run the racing program for kids on Wednesday afternoons and another for kids, often with their parents, on Saturday afternoons. I was called Commodore in exchange for a modest salary of about $40 a month if I recall correctly. The Marconi-rigged catboats carried a lot of sail and often capsized when the Buzzards Bay winds picked up in the afternoons. I used Flicker to give sailing lessons and earn some "real money" on the side. Happy times! The class has disappeared, alas. Today there are only a few small fiberglass sailboats occasionally on the pond and no organized racing that I have seen. And the old wooden Flicker? Gone for scrap wood years ago. Since then I've owned a lot of boats. I'm planning to sell a Pearson 303 and an original O'Day Daysailer this year and looking to get a small, comfortable, trailerable boat for my sunset years.
My first boat at age 10 was an old 14' closed bow wood Old Town (I think) strip planked skiff powered with an old Elgin 7.5 hp OB. Had a button on top you held down to engage the start rope. An uncle salvaged the boat from Jamaica Bay New York, and gave me the OB. Many fun vacation hours in the '50s crabbing and fishing alone, and with Dad, on the Metedeconk River on the Jersey shore. Lots of winter hours calking and painting each year. Good times. Have had an assortment of small power and sail since including two 12' row/sail/power now.
First boat was a Sunfish I learned to sail at Boy Scout camp. Definitely a wet sailer, but you could move fast in the gusts on the lake and capsizing was half the fun; you got to know just how far you could push it, and you knew that you could easily recover from a capsize by yourself. The feeling of moving fast next to the water without noise except the water and wind was what hooked me. And rigging was nearly instantaneous. My Suncat is the grown-up version, but I would not want to capsize her.
My very first boat was a Folbot lateen-rig kayak, but it was damaged in transit and had to be returned to the manufacturer. My first real boat was a Snark Wildflower. It claimed to be a sailboat, a powerboat, and a rowboat, but there were compromises made that hindered each of these abilities in real life. At 11-1/2 feet, with a 20-foot mast and a 100 sq. ft. sloop rig, it had a lot of sail power, which almost made up for the tri-hull bow that helped with power boat performance. It was terrible as a rowboat. I sailed that boat all over nearby Lake Whitney in central TX for almost 20 years. Sure, the plastic skin separated from the styrofoam core at the daggerboard well, and we had to do fiberglass work to repair it with little personal knowledge of how to do it. But that boat served me well for nearly 2 decades, and it was easy to set up, too. As I get older, I wish I had it back, but apparently there are NO Wildflowers for sale...EVER!