When did you get your first Boat ?

[zinbaad]

I thought this might be a good topic to get out. How old were you when you got your first boat? What type was it? Where areas did you use it in?

I was about 14 when my Marine Dad ( who could not swim for his life) went out and bought a 14 ft 1/4 plywood lake boat, it had wooden ribs like an old wood canoe, 18 hp Johnson and 2 planks for seats. It had a steering wheel but we could go a little faster if we sat & used the tiller in the stern. Easy to figure out my Dad never used it & gave it to me & my brother & we had a ball for the next few summers. We kept it in a Marina across from Laguadia Airport. Before Homeland Security I used to open it up and go under the extended runway all the way to Rikers Island Prison. I remember taking it as far East as Huntington Harbor on Long Island & up the Hudson River North to West Point. I even got paid $8.00 to tow a 26ft Trojan through Hells Gate back to his marina. Wow, what the hell did we know way back then.... Thats how it started

Putt, Putt, putt.

[Veebyes2]

I guess my very very first boat was a home designed & built 8'er my father built me when I was about 12. It could be rowed or sculled. Home cruising ground was a very shallow bay & mangrove swamp that had channels meandering through it hebce the need to be able to scull the boat. For those who don't know sculling is single oar propulsion similar to Venetian gondolas, a figure '8' in the water with a twist of the wrist as you do it.

Had a blast with that thing surfing waves at the entrance to the bay, fishing around the bay & playing 'hide & seek' at night with other friends in similar boats in the mangrove swamp.

Later teenage years were spent on a friends 17' Whaler. Who has NOT had a Whaler in their lives?

Eight years into marriage before we bought our first 'big' boat, a 21' Answer cuddy cabin in 1982. And so the overnighting began.

[jleonard]

I didn't get my first boat until 1987. I was 36. It was a 16 1/2 ft fiberglass runabout. Then I started to get the bigaboatdiesease.
Glad I waited as long as I did or I'd be really penniless.

[jcollins]

I'm like JLeonard. I bought my first boat in '87 as well. I was 33. 21' Sea Ray. Pastel yellow w/ cuddy. Loved it! Cruised all over the upper Chesapeake. No fear.

When I was a teenager I had a jon boat and hung out with friends that owned boats.

[pcthornton]

This is a good topic for a snowy February night. We need something to pass the time this winter, don't we?

I spent my summers growing up at our summer cottage on Common Fence Point in Portsmouth, RI on the Sakonnet River. My first boat was a 12' wooden, flat bottom skiff. I was about 10 years old. The interior was blue and the outside was red and white. We painted the bottom with a rust colored antifouling paint. I rowed that boat up and down and across the river all summer.

By the time I was 12, I had saved enough (about $300), via selling TV Guide subscriptions and delivering them weekly to the neighbors back in Somerset, MA and sweeping the floors at my father's shop, to buy a 7.5 HP Sears outboard motor for the skiff. This is before the time when parents actually made their kids save for things rather than just buying them for them.

The outboard changed my life. My friends and I would venture out into Mt. Hope Bay as well as through the Tiverton Basin and down the Sakonnet River. One day, we actually got stopped by a Coast Guard boat in Tiverton Basin for not adhering to the no-wake requirement. They boarded my boat with already three of us in it. I remember thinking how the guy was going to sink my boat! I think she was up to the gunwales when he boarded! Fortunately, we had life jackets in the boat, although I don't remember ever wearing them. My parents never seemed to worry about me going out in the boat. I think they just trusted me.

When I was about 16 or so, I bought my first "real" boat. A 16' aluminum Starcraft with an old 40 HP Johnson that siezed up in the first season! So then it was another year of saving money to eventually buy a used, but much newer, 25 HP Johnson that pushed the Starcraft along very nicely.

Then there was my beloved Mako 17 that I bought when I was 20 years old. This boat was great. I sold it within 4 years to buy my only sailboat. Sailing and racing was fun, and I went to Block Island for the first time with this boat, but I was always a powerboater at heart.

This is the first time I've ever recounted my early boating years in writing. Thanks for jogging my memory.

[RicM]

Colin:

Did you go to Somerset High? I did, class of 1970. I delivered the Fall River Herald News and worked in my dad's drug store as a soda jerk as a kid. My dad had a number of boats, starting with a flat bottom wooden atrocity with a Johnson on the back. He finally worked his way up to a pee yellow 21' Browning (yes the gun people) cuddy cabin. I had my own set of keys to it and could take it out anytime I wanted. We had great times on it. Dad tried to fish but he was terrible at it, I thought of him first when I caught my first 50 lb bass this past year. We took it to Newport and Block Island and it was really exciting back before GPS, Radar etc. We used to wait off Pt Judith and then follow the ferry to BI, cause they would knock down the chop and they had radar and Loran. The saddest day of my life was after he died suddenly my mom offered me that boat and I couldn't afford to even pay the insurance on it, so she had to sell it.

Fast forward 30 years and I had just moved to Wickford and a friend of mine almost died (ironically from a cut on his foot while out fishing on a boat). I suddenly realized I had been putting off getting a boat for almost 30 years. An old high school friend had bought and was restoring a 1965 Egg Harbor and I helped him refasten the bottom on two Sundays. It brought back all the fun of hanging around the dock and the boat yard. It also brought back memories of good times with my dad who died at the age that I was just then. I bought a 25' Proline Walkaround and came home and told Karen, "you may hate this, but I've done it". In one of the great surprises of my life, she loved that boat, and loved fishing even more! 3 seasons with the Proline and I started to think bigger and then the 28TE came along. Thank god for boating, it's the only thing that keeps me sane!

[jleonard]

drug store as a soda jerk as a kid

So did I..and I haven't heard that term in a very long time.

[chiefrcd]

Wow...does this bring back memories... I was about 10 and we lived near this swamp. All of kids in the neighborhood practically grew up playing there. I guess it was a natural progression but 4 of us built our first flat bottom square end boat. It looked more like a storage box with low sides. We did have enough sense or dumb luck to get it to float and not leak too bad...It was perfect for setting in, not much of a boat to move around in....we would set for hours catching crayfish (crawdaddys) and then steam them on a campfire.

[Legacy]

Congratulations Ric for becoming sane!

Spending summers on Great Herring Pond in Plymouth, MA, my family always had boats. A Glastron with a Johnson 55 then a Larsen with a 135 and we water skied and fished from walking age. Even had a rowboat and a sailboat. But, the big transition from passenger to captain came when I was 10 and got a Johnson 2 hp for Christmas to put on a 8' O'day dingy. That thing woke all the neighbors every morning as I headed out to catch bass and hornpout. Fell off the transom once and the diver hired to find it probably cost more than the engine. Still have it in my garage somewhere, probably has just shy of a million hours on it.

In high school I moved up the food chain and bought an ancient and neglected wooden Bristol on the channel 2 Auction for $100. Worked all winter fixing her up. Plopped her in the water in the early Spring and bailed her out after she quickly settled to the bottom.

When I started working full time during the summer, driving a booze cruise boat while studying to be a Catholic priest, (now that's another story!), I got a little Whaler, then moved up to a 18' Robalo with a 150 merc that I kept on Boston harbor. Swore that was the only boat I'd ever need. A couple of years later I bought a 1994 Albin 28, also the last one I'd ever, ever need and this time I mean it. A few years back I bought an Albin 35 that I'm slowly restoring. Along the way I got a wife who insists she had me sign a document, while intoxicated I suppose, that said I never needed a bigger boat! But to quote a now-disgraced ace pitcher "I Misremember signing it!" Legacy is named for my mum. Also an avid boater, when she died of lung cancer my small inheritance allowed my to buy the Albin - - so it's her Legacy too.

Now back to yachtworld.com to find my next boat!

[Pitou]

The boating bug bit early. As a young kid starting at about age 6 the family use to head to VT or Maine every weekend with the old Penn Yan canvas covered wood ribbed skiff atop of the station wagon for fresh water fishing adventures. By the time I was about 10 I was able to head out alone (no adults anyway). If I wasn’t in the lake swimming I was cruising about with the 5hp Johnson pushing me to the next fishing hole. I still have that Penn Yan.

On the few weekends we stayed home it was off to Ipswich Bay to fish for flounder out of my grandfathers wooden lap strake boat made by White ….. precursor to Grady/White (still have one of those old handlines). Man did that boat have a lot of bright work . I smelled that salt air and I was hooked.

At 14 my grandfather bought the boys a 1967 16’ 7” Whaler ….. we needed to be safe. That was one hell of a bluefish & striper catching, wave jumping, chick chasing machine. After that it was all over …… 14 years later I took the Admiral on her for our 1st date and I caught a keeper. We ended up buying that great boat from the family and ran her for 10 more years. Then came the 26’ center console with twin 200’s.

With the fix for speed being fed comfort was now in order ….. voila a 28TE and we’re good for now. What's next .....

[zinbaad]

Some how I knew I was going to pull a bunch of great memories out of everyone. WOW, those were the good ole days, but then again so many great Albin days ahead!

[Mariner]

I guess I fall into the category of the spoiled children whose parents buy them everything. My first boat was a 10' fiberglass cathedral hull thing built by a local company called "Olympian". My father ran a fiberglass company and he must have gotten some sort of special deal on it or something becuase one day he just sort of showed up after work with it strapped to the top of his car like some sort of turtle shell. I would venture a guess that I was about 5 years old. By then I had already taken the helm several times on my dad's 19' bowrider, so the bug had already bitten. At first, I was only allowed to row around in front of the house with a 50' rope tied to the beach. Gradually the rope got longer, and eventually, it was gone altogether. And at some point the boat sprouted a 5hp Suzuki outboard, and was given a virtual leash of of about 1/2 mile from the house, which kept me inside the protected bay we lived on in Puget Sound and always within sight of the kitchen window. Around 1990, after the bowrider's fitful I/O finally belched it's last puff of putrid smoke, I convinced my father that what we needed was a 13' Boston Whaler. Eventually, he caved and bought a 1964 13' Whaler with 30hp Johnson. I ran this boat up and down the mile long bay until it was stolen in 1993. As soon as the insurance check cleared, we were on the hunt for a replacement. Finally, a 1971 13' with a 40hp engine was found. That same boat still sits in my garage today. I suppose you could say that was my first boat, because I did finally officially buy it from my father in 2003 for fair market value before undertaking a complete restoration. I've also since purchased an 18' Boston Whaler that sees a lot more use than the little 13' these days.

[powerboater56]

I was about 9 or 10 when my father brought home a 12-foot Penn Yan "Cartopper" with a 3 hp outboard. I loved that boat -- I could get it onto plane with the 3 hp outboard, and I ran it all around Cold Spring Harbor and Oyster Bay on the north shore of Long Island, NY. My family owned Penn Yan at the time, so needless to say I continued with the brand until the business was sold. The 12 ft cartopper and my brother's 10 ft "swift" were beautiful examples of wooden boat building -- lightweight planking with canvas outer covering. My brother's Swift was powered by a 7-1/2 hp Scott Atwater outboard, and it could fly. Beautiful boats -- I wish we had hung on to them.

At about age 20 I bought a 16-foot Penn Yan runabout, single IO, and a few years later bought an 18-foot inboard "tunnel drive" Penn Yan. After the business was sold my connection to Penn Yan waned so my next boats were a Wellcraft 21 center console, then a Romany 21 diesel English day boat and for the last 20 years I've owned a 1980 Mako 25 center console. That has been a terrific boat for running all around Narragansett Bay, Mt. Hope Bay and the Sakonnet River.

I just signed an agreement to buy a 2005 Albin 35 CB which I look forward to bringing back to Rhode Island. The boat is located near Detroit and I am planning to cruise it back via Lake Erie and the Erie Canal.

I've owned boats continuously for more than 40 years and I can't imagine life without a boat. Not a prudent choice financially, but I'll be happy to downsize to a kayak if need be when I'm in my 70's or 80's.

J. Schieffelin
Jamestown, RI

[Pitou]

I was about 9 or 10 when my father brought home a 12-foot Penn Yan "Cartopper" with a 3 hp outboard. I loved that boat -- I could get it onto plane with the 3 hp outboard, and I ran it all around Cold Spring Harbor and Oyster Bay on the north shore of Long Island, NY. My family owned Penn Yan at the time, so needless to say I continued with the brand until the business was sold. The 12 ft cartopper and my brother's 10 ft "swift" were beautiful examples of wooden boat building -- lightweight planking with canvas outer covering. My brother's Swift was powered by a 7-1/2 hp Scott Atwater outboard, and it could fly. Beautiful boats -- I wish we had hung on to them.

J. Schieffelin
Jamestown, RI

It sounds as if I have the same 12 footer. A beautiful boat ... my thanks to your family. Mine is a mid 1950's model and it had a beautiful green Johnson 3hp on the back ... she flew. Later on I shot alot of ducks from that old boat right up until about 10 years ago. My only regret ... in my early 20's I stripped the canvas and covered in fiberglass. Stupid kid . Regardless she is still my pride though not used as often as I should . What a great boat and what fun I had while growing up.

[pcthornton]

Hey Ric,

Yes, I did go to Somerset High - class of '77. What a small world it is! You were right between my older brother (class of '66) and my older sister (class of '74). What drug store did your dad own?

Colin