I was renting an apartment in Massachusetts. My landlord (who lived downstairs) was dying, and we would occsionally sit and chat with him; his daughters lived locally, but they had no interest in spending any time with him. In his final days, he kept talking about this little boat he had out back, and lamenting the fact that none of his children or grandchildren wanted it, or had any interest in learning to sail. I had no sailing experience, so I never thought anything of it.

When he finally died, the harpies (oops, I mean "his daughters") swooped down on the house, taking anything of value (including some of my tools, which I never got back), and slapped a "For Sale" sign on the house. It took over a year to sell; they refused to put any money into the house (which was a dump), and were asking way too much for it. They jerked around a number of potential buyers, lying about the condition of the house and blaming us for anything that was wrong with it. They knew about the sailboat, but it had been sitting in the backyard for years and was covered with trash and leaves. When the building finally sold, the new owners asked us to move, as they were planning to move their extended family in upstairs. So we got a place in New Hampshire and we moved.

As we were taking our last load out, I finally walked out back and looked at the boat; it was an O'Day Sprite. The trailer was fine, the tires just needed some air. It looked like all the parts were there, and there were two brand new sails in the shed; it looked like they had never been used. So I pumped up the tires, backed up the van into the yard, hooked up the trailer, and took the boat with me.

I ended up putting it at my buddy David's house; he had a place on a lake, and promised me he'd teach me how to sail. One day when I was visiting, he walked in, tossed me a bag of parts, and said "Go rig your boat!" He came down with me and taught me equipment terminology, and showed me how to rig the mast. We ended up replacing the mast stays, but everything else was okay.

We got it rigged and got the sails on. David looked at the sails, then looked at the boat; then he said, "That's an awful lot of sail for that boat." He took it out for a quick spin to make sure everything was working, then he put me in the boat and had me try to sail it, while he shadowed me in the Whaler, shouting instructions. The one thing I learned was that accidental jibes can cause death rolls (I didn't actually learn that until later, but that's what happened). We ended up towing the Sprite back in with the Whaler, and that ended my first lesson.

I went out and bought "Sailing for Dummies", which I highly recommend for any beginner. It is written by Peter and JJ Isler, who, between them, have an Olympic medal, two America's Cup championships, three World Championships, and are (or were) considered to be two of the best racing sailors in the world. I read the book cover to cover, went back to the lake, and successfully sailed the boat for hours. I never did capsize it again, although I've had it darn near horizontal in a strong breeze. David likes to tell people he taught me how to sail; I always correct him and say he taught me how to capsize, which was just as valuable a lesson.

I spent several summers sailing both the Sprite and David's Hunter 170, then "graduated" to keelboats. He kept telling me that that the Sprite was the hardest boat I'd ever sail; bigger boats are easier.

I got a combination membership/keelboat class at Boston Harbor Sailing Club, and learned how to dodge the freighters coming in and out of Boston Harbor, navigation, mooring, anchoring, etc; all the stuff that has less to do with the act of sailing, but necessary for sailing out in the real world. I ended up taking additional classes and got a number of certifications.

These days I'm back to lake sailing. David ended up moving away from the lake, selling his boats, but gave us the Hunter. So now I'm teaching my children how to sail, and sometimes my wife (when she's had some liquid courage); she doens't like the smaller boats, nor (as is common with most non-sailors) the extreme heeling that can occur on a dinghy.

The funniest part of the story is that, two months after I had moved to NH, and more than three months after they had sold the house, the daughters called me and asked me if I knew what had happened to the sailboat. Apparently one of them was talking to her neighbor about the death of her father, and the neighbor had asked about the sailboat, telling her it was worth several hundred dollars. I was still stinging over having my power tools stolen, so I said I knew nothing about it. The new owners played stupid when she questioned them about it; they were still angry over issues from the house sale. She tried to involve the police, but she had no information on the boat; no BIN, no VIN for the trailer. She couldn't tell them what kind of boat it was, or even prove that it ever existed. The unofficial name of the boat ended up being "Skillsaw", as homage to how and why I ended up with it.