What got you into boating?

[HabanaJoe]

Had no choice, grandfather was a fisherman, father was a fisherman (part-time commerical), grew up going out 100 miles to set lobster traps or set tilefish gear before anyone knew what a Hudson Canyon or 4000 line was.

One day many years ago we came into Pt Pleasant to unload and we couldn't get in the inlet, it was closed, I was very young. My father really ****ed off yelling, "those F**king stupid race boats, we got to unload!"

Got to watch the boats, Billy Martin and the Bounty Hunter, tracked him down to his furniture store in Linden, wrote him a letter and he answered me. For years drove past the store on rt 22, stopped twice but he wasn't in - last year we met at the Highlands ramp and finally after 30 plus years thanked him for that letter back. He may not have remembered me, but he was my idol!

Joe Gere

 

[inbetween]

Grew up on Lake Erie with a Dad who had a thing for fast Checkmates. Spent the summers at a family cottage on the beach watching the Scarabs, Cigs, Magnums etc. going by every weekend. Dad was an early member of GLOPRA, used to run in a late 60's Pachanga.

I remember under the bow of an underway 18' Checkmate was a great place to nap.

 

[TCEd]

What got you into boating ?
The cost of flying airplanes.
ed

 

[old377guy]

It's all my dad's doing; started my brother and I out with rowboats, then rowboat with Johnson Sea Horse 10 hp, then 18' Owens w/75 hp Evinrude Starflite V-4. About 1962 I saw an article in the old man's Motorboat and Sailing Magazine? with pix of old Bertram blasting along out in the Atlantic - been hooked ever since.

 

[phragle]

My grandfather was coastguard.. by the time I was 3 I was standing on my Dad's feet watersking behind a boat my grandfather designed and built. With no such thing as the internet, there were always boating mags around, saw offshore racing on tv as well as baja racing... got bit hard.. the thought of taking something, running it hard enough to win, but still keeping it together got stuck in my brain... at 12 or so, I saw my first cig up close and personal, wrote them a letter and got a bunch of brochures and couple stickers and a letter from Don A. (wish I still had it). around that time my uncle bought a Nova, and I also went for a ride in a Maurader with twin 454's... Now many years later, I have won the Baja 1000, own a Nova and will be mving up after next year.

 

[Geronimo36]

Have to say u where kind of cute when little,,,,don't know why u are so UGLY now ??!!! LOL :sifone::bump:

I'm still trying to figure out what my wife saw in me... but I digress...

I knew I was ugly so what does that make you?:seeya:

 

[Woody]

Grew up going to Edwardsville on the Potomac and Deltaville on the Chesapeake Bay. We used to run around in skiffs and dodge the nettles skiing. Dad had a boat that we worked on for years and he never told mom about it, I was his partner in crime. We laugh about it now but the day he brought it home we thought mom was leaving...

Always had a passion for speed on land and on the water. The Crocket and Tubbs years were great fuel too. Gradually stepped up through different boats from ski boats to sport fish to offshore boats. When I get on the water it's like tossing a switch. Doesn't matter how bad the day or week was....push the throttles and it all goes away, Doesn't get much better:cheers2:

We had our son out on the center console at 3-weeks, the Top Gun at 6-weeks and he'll be on the MTI before he's a year old. I can only hope he continues the tradition:sifone:

 

[Slandrew]

Old school Freeport N.Y. legends:cheers2:Oh yea & 13' Bosten Whaler:USA:

 

[Smarty]

My father got me into boating; he was a hot-rodder, cars, boats, snowmobiles. 1966 or 1967 he had tunnel boat with a Merc BP 125 towed by a split window 1963 Vette. And the new 16' Donzi in 1969 (me at age four), my mother and father I was born in 1965. Donzi's, Cigarette, Pantera, Magnum, and Phantom were the boats he owned.

 

[DAREDEVIL]

I'm still trying to figure out what my wife saw in me... but I digress...

I knew I was ugly so what does that make you?:seeya:

LOLOLOL...your wife still thinks i am cute !!!:bump:

 

[Knot 4 Me]

My Dad, around 1974 when I was 10 years old. Found out about offshore racing a few years after that while down in Ft. Meyers.

 

[Sea-Dated]

Family, grew up on housboats and runabouts and then Miami Vice got a hold of me and dreamed of a Cig from that day forward....

 

[cigdaze]

I grew up near Lake George, NJ where dad kept our 19' Crestliner; great times there.
So, boating was a a part of life.

That + Miami Vice + a trip to the NY boat show when I was a teenager sealed my fate. At the NY show, I saw cigarette boats up close and personal for the first time, and I was hooked. Right then and there, I told myself that one day I would have one. It took a few boats to get there, but here I am.

 

[animalhouse]

I was fortunate enough to get a 13 whaler when i was 11, and then it started, I had a 19' checkmate w/ a 200 merc, jackplate, and foot throtle. I got bit by the bug. I then took a job as a purchasing agent and a captain for a friend of mine and have been running boats ranging from 3 of his outerlimits' all the way up to 114' motoryachts, and just about everything in between. Now I have turned my hobby into a career.

I love the thrill of going fast, but I also love the feeling of sitting 200 miles offshore and reeling in a 700+ pound Blue Marlin.

 

[Magic Medicine]

My parents got me into boating, in fact I was pretty close to being born on our boat!