I grew up on boats with my parents, this was their hobby. I got my first boat when I was 14, a 16' Chaparel with a 90hp outboard. My teenage years was spent water skiing/wakeboarding with friends and my parents. I became addicted to performance boating ever since Miami Vice. :smile1:

 

Grew up as a kid on the St Lawrence River, 1000 Islands. Gotta have a boat up there.

 

some of my best memories are being 7 and on my dads boat for the weekend

 

Born on an Island, only way off was by boat or aircraft.

 

On a boat long before i could walk....

Mostly fishing boats, my dad was and still is to this day a big fisherman. So, i grew up on all types of fishing boats.

I'm not a fisherman though...I'll get into fishing when im an old man....im too high strung for that **** right now.


-Liquid

 

when I was a kid we used to vacation on Long Lake in Maine and my dad had a little Elgin outboard that we'd put on the back of an aluminum boat that came with the cottage we used to rent.

I 'd spend hours zooming around the lake trying to pick up girls for rides...

Used to save up my allowance to pay for gas before we'd go on vacation. I found out early on it's easier to pick up chicks when you've got a boat.

plus they already had their bathing suit on and it's easier to coax them out of a bathing suit than fuly dressed. :laugher: :laugher: :laugher:

 

Born on an Island, only way off was by boat or aircraft.

Alcatraz?

 

Our family and friends always had speed boats so, as you mention, it was natural for me, once I had a good job, to buy a boat.

 

My Dads master plan, You raise them on the water and then it's their turn to spend the money and cater to you. Pay back!

 

I was standing a local bar where boats pull in and dock. I heard a rumble come around the corner...THERE SHE was, the most beautiful boat I had ever seen 34 Scarab "thumper" (with the rabbit on the side). Before that boat I never really knew what a performance boat was. That was the boat that got me hooked.

 

Parents started me as a blowboater, had my 1st Hobie cat when I was 12. Graduated to a couple of SeaDoo's and the next logical step was a "real" boat, my current ride.

I am already looking at my next one, gotta go bigger baby.

 

My dad announced boat races for about three years. Every summer I would go with him and help out in the pits or anywhere else I could. As soon as I graduated from high school, I took my graduation money and bought my first race boat had about five more in the years I raced then traded speed for comfort and now enjoy cruising up and down the bay.

 

My Dad had a number of boats when I was a kid. Loved it , spent all week during the summer waiting for the weekends. Got away from it for a number of years as an older teen with a drivers license. Would occasionally rent one for a day to go skiing...probably the smartest thing I ever did :laugher: . Fast forward a few more years to 1989 or 90 on vacation on Lake Winnipesaukee NH with a rental with NO skiing or night use .
Well , I showed them...I went home and bought my own. Next year went back and fell in love with 3 FourWinns Liberators that were docked where I was staying. Oh that sound :devious: . So I bought one of those when I got home
Then discovered the advantages(and sound) of TWINS . That's when I bought my Formula.




And gas has been going up since :dead: Oh what the he!!...I never saw a Brinks truck following a hearse :laugher: :laugher: :laugher:

 

Dad was career Navy. We always lived near the water, and had some kind of boat or another. Used to rent outboard boats from the base for $3 a day.

 

My aunt and uncle had a ski boat on twin lakes in southern wisc. learned how to ski at 9 and ever since then has hooked on boats, live in an area where boating is easily accesible.

 

My parents were boating along the Jersey Shore before I ws born. They sold the boat when I came along.
About the time I was 7 or 8 they got the itch to get back on the water, that was 1962 or 63. Been on the water since.

 

Grew up in Kingston, Ontario and father always had Carver's in the 1000 Islands. In the summers, my brothers and mother would live on the boat and dad would go back and forth to work by water.

As soon as I was working and had some extra money, I bought my first boat, 14' Sidewinder and have been hooked ever since.

 

My grandparents lived on Walloon lake here in Michigan
so I spent my summers up there. One day I went down
to the Walloon Village Marina to look at some water
skiing apparel,and there she was tied up at the dock.
A 19ft. open engine jet boat with a built to teeth 454.
This thing was just unbelievable,motor was all dressed
in chrome with the Bassett over transom headers,and
a paint job that was killer. Metal flake silver and black
and on the deck it read.The Silver Bullet.
I was told the boat was owned by none other than
Bob Seager himself.After seeing that awesome ride I
was hooked.

 

not really into boating, but a boat seemed like such a great investment and such a low cost no maintenance hobby to get into. :laugher: :laugher: :laugher:

 

:laugher: :laugher: :laugher:

 

:laugher: :laugher:

now that was funny.

Great stories guys, more, more!

 

I wish I had had a boating family growing up, instead my parents looked at boats with the “I could stand in the shower tearing up $100 bills and have just as much fun” mentality. My aunt and uncle lived on the water in Pasadena Maryland in a rented house that happen to include a 13’ Boston Whaler with 25 hp Merc on the back. From the first time I went out on it I wanted a boat (I was about 7 years old at the time). Parents would never go for it, but I longed for a boat for the rest of my life. I came close to buying one on my own when I got older, but there was always something that stood in my way. Finally I met my wonderful wife, almost seven years ago now, and we got married. Turned out she enjoyed the water as well, and we begin longing for a boat of our own together. Finally two years ago we were able to get our first boat. We have been loving every moment of it (minus the damn winter months), and with any luck will never be without one again! Better late then never I suppose…

 

When I was 8 years old in 1963, dear 'ol Mom bought a Sears runabout with a 45 HP Sears OB. Talk about fun for a kid. Then in 1972, she bought a new 16 Donzi . . . and I still have it.

 

My older brother had a 20 foot Baja jet boat. Anybody remember them?

We used to run it on the Illinois river in Ottawa Illinois about 16-20 years ago. It looked like a mini Cigarette except with a beautiful metallic paint job. The boat had a 454 magnum that to this day had one of the sweetest sounding engines I have ever heard.

That Baja was a perfect river rat it would do 70 mph and shoot a rooster tail like nobody's business.

He also had a $3000 sound system installed in it with 5 - 10" sub-woofers that would literally rattle your beer right off the deck and into the water. :

His Baja was the main reason I bought my Baja 272. Man we had some fun on his boat. :rambo:

 

Like many, my parents had a boat that was kept at a small marina in Stonington ,CT when I was about 9-10 years old I can remember their was another marina and there was a Cigarette and a Scarab. Their was a bridge that you had to idle thru and then you could nail it after that I can remember these guys racing from the bridge to our marina. When i heard them I used to run to the end of the docks to watch them throttle down to go by our marina and they used to wave to me. But the best part of it was when the people at the marina (including my parents) used to bitch about the noise and my father used to say those things are useless you can't fish on them, funny when I bought my first one my dad was still bitching (what the hell you going to do with that) then i explained about the girls and boats thing and he was all smiles.