first boat

[AlMar]

This should be a fun topic that got it's start from the "Name of your boat" topic. Made me think of our "First" It was a Snark, nay, to be accurate, a Super Snark! 11' long, 3'2" wide and a lateen rigged sail. foam cored plastic with a two ft plywood daggerboard and rudder. Not much more than a well shaped cooler, but the whole family learned to sail with it. Great fun.
AlMar

[chiefrcd]

The first boat I ever owned other than a canoe which had no name, was a Catalina 25 that I bought off the lot at a local dealeship. I had never set foot on a sail boat in my life. Bought the boat, the dealer delivered it to the bay and then my wife and I went down and sat on it....cause neither one of us knew how to sail a thing. It took several months of classes on seamanship and meeting some really great sailors who took us under their wing before we could even manage to get it in and out of the slip. Ended up being addicted to sailing, even spending Christmas each hear on the boat. Absolutely some of the best times of my life were spent sailing her around the Chesapeake Bay on weekend trips. A simple boat, easy to sail and very very forgiving. Often wonder what happened to old "DragonFly"......

[Tuxedo]

I was in school when I got mine. My Dad was with the Boy Scouts and someone gave them an old wooden runabout. My Dad found it rotting away in a barn, and told me if my friends and I would fix it up, we could have it. Well, fixing up mostly consisted of standing around watching my Dad repair it. When the rot was replaced, we decided to fiberglass the bottom, a tasteful blue, which we did ourselves.

Of course, it leaked like a sieve, but we didn't care, we had a boat. Then one day while pulling a skier, half the bottom came off. The skier, someone's girlfriend, asked "What was that blue stuff I skied over?"

Boat had a 1958 50hp Johnson, the one with the portholes, that would pull the world.

[jcollins]

My first was a 12' Sears with a 9hp on it. We didn't have skis so we pulled a door around and tried to stand up on it. We were in Maine for the summer. It was called Toddy Pond. My friends dad taught me the rules of the road. Don't remember much except it was one of the best summers in my life.