Growing up in South Florida from the age of four until I graduate High School I spent a lot of my time on or near the water. My Uncles owned motorized boats that we spent weekends fishing and diving off in the Florida Keys. However, I was not introduced to sailing until I was at the Georgia Intstitute of Technology
I was attending Georiga Tech on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Therefore, I spent part of each week with my ROTC duties. During my first quarter at Tech we were informed that we had to learn to sail as part of our ROTC training. I was not all too excited about that since I had grown up with motorized vessels and could not understand why anyone would want to rely on just the wind to get from point A to B. Since it was a requirement, I went out to Lake Lanier to learn how to sail.
We arrived at the Lake Lanier yacht club to pick up our eight sailboats. We had eight
Lasers and a one 25 foot Minuet. Our first experience was on the Laser's. Our instructors,
other (instructor qualified) Navy ROTC students, explained how to put the Laser together,
explained some of the important techniques to sailing, and then we headed for the water.
We started off in an isoloated cove of Lake Lanier where we did not have to worry about other boats getting in the way. The wind was was up and the Lasers were really flying around in the water as the instructors showed us where to sit, how to trim the sails, the difference between a Tack and a Jive.
Soon it was our turn to sail the Laser. We switched places with our instructors and started off into the cove. After the effortlessness that the instructors had shown we all expected to easily master sailing. We were wrong! After thirty minutes I was still struggling to keep the sails trim and the boat moving in the direction that I wanted to go. I found this increasingly difficult when trying to go upwind.
No matter how much I struggled that first day I really enjoyed myself on the water and was anxiously awaiting my next trip to the lake. After a couple of more trips I knew that sailing was something that I wanted to continue. SO I enrolled in the Sail Instructors classes and after four months I was qualified as a sail instructor. (My roommate and I were the first Freshman to receive the qualification at Georgia Tech).
After leaving Georgia Tech and Navy ROTC I did not get to sail as much. I no longer had access to free sailing vessels. When I was at the beach for a vacation or with friends we would rent a Hobie Cat or small sailboat but that was not all too often.
When I came to Birmingham to work I found out that my manager liked to sail. He did not have a sailboat but had taken a few open ocean sailing trips and passed the US Sailing test. As we discussed sailing further we decided it would be a great idea to go on a trip. So we convinced four other co-workers to join us and then headed to Key West to take control of our rented sailboat. That trip is chronicled here on this site.
After returning I wanted to complete the requirements to allow me to rent and sail boats around the world so I would not have to rely on someone else to rent the vessel. I called up and received a qualification form from The Moorings (one of the best rental companies in the world). I filled out all of the information they needed and waited for a reply. In the end The Moorings decided that I was qualified (from my previous motor and sail boat experience) to captain any vessel in their rental fleet.