{"id":14963,"date":"2025-08-13T10:02:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/?p=14963"},"modified":"2025-08-13T10:02:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T10:02:19","slug":"falling-in-love-with-boating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/?p=14963","title":{"rendered":"Falling in Love With Boating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    Falling in Love With Boating<br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><br \/>\n    <!-- no image --><br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><\/p>\n<div>\n<section class=\"hydra-container\">\n<div class=\"hydra-canvas\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/boatingmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BTG725-OMD-Love-Boating-1024x768.jpg?resize=800%2C600&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"hydra-image\" alt=\"Young skier on the water\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BTG725-OMD-Love-Boating-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BTG725-OMD-Love-Boating-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BTG725-OMD-Love-Boating-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BTG725-OMD-Love-Boating-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/BTG725-OMD-Love-Boating.jpg 2000w\">                <\/div><figcaption class=\"caption margin_top_xs full border_1 hydra-figcaption\">\n                <span class=\"hydra-image-caption\">Discovering a love for boating can happen at an early age.<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"article_image_credit italic margin_right_xs\">Tim Bower<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/section>\n<p><iframe id=\"wxuzj5efbz\" src=\"https:\/\/boatingmag.dragonforms.com\/wxuzj5efbz\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"width:100%;height:165px;border:none;overflow:hidden;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I was probably a preteen when my father and I were guests of the older son of family friends. The son owned a fast, gold metal-flake speedboat, probably a Glastron. On its transom hung a towering pair of 100 hp Mercs. We spent an afternoon on Green Lake just zooming around, hunting for other speedboats to race. We never lost one of those impromptu speed trials, even to the guy in something called a Donzi. This introduced me to the thrill of speed for speed\u2019s sake on a venue where there was no speed limit. Freedom, in other words.<\/p>\n<p>I was in high school when I got invited to spend a summer afternoon at a classmate\u2019s family lake cottage. There was a tri-hull runabout on the lift, and our host knew how to drive the boat, so she proposed that five or six of us cast off for a little water-skiing. I had never been towed behind a boat and was quite proud that I got up on my first try. Did a little sashay across the wakes, just to show off. When my turn was over, I retired to a cockpit full of happy, smiling girls in swimsuits, including our captain, a tall redhead I would pursue for years. Does life get any better? Not when you\u2019re a 16-year-old boy.<\/p>\n<p>Fast-forward about a decade. I\u2019ve, quite improbably, joined the staff at <em>Boating<\/em> magazine; the boy-wonder assistant editor from Wisconsin lands in Manhattan. I soon find myself in the cockpit of a 24-foot center-console, heading out Government Cut at dawn for a run to Bimini for a boat-test session following the Miami Boat Show. For my first journey on salt water, I was paired with a real salt: the magazine\u2019s editor, Doug Schryver. Soon enough, we were crossing the Gulf Stream and some big seas. I was instructed to steer on course while Doug throttled the single Mercury outboard as we climbed and descended thick swells. At one point, I recall looking to port and seeing nothing but a wall of green water, like I could touch it with my elbow. To starboard, I saw nothing but air. I felt like I was in a Hemingway story, or an episode of <em>Victory at Sea<\/em>. We arrived soaked to the skin, but I was thrilled and filled with newfound confidence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read Next:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/how-to\/why-young-boaters-should-get-a-captains-license\/\">Why Young Boaters Should Get a Captain\u2019s License<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I landed my first job in the boat business completely by accident, answering a blind ad that turned out to be for a PR position at OMC\/Evinrude\/Johnson. When I worked at OMC, I had a colleague who, as a teenager, ran a 13-foot Speedliner solo from his home on Long Island to Miami to attend school. He had the boat but did not have a car. That\u2019s passion! I\u2019ve never felt the romantic devotion to the water that I saw in that guy. But, perhaps surprisingly, boating has defined my life. Lucky, huh?<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/how-to\/falling-in-love-with-boating\/\">Falling in Love With Boating<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/\">Boating Mag<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> \t<BR><br \/>\n <BR><\/BR><br \/>\n    Charles Plueddeman<br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/boatingmag.com\/how-to\/falling-in-love-with-boating\/\">Go to boatingmag<\/a><br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n <BR><\/BR><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Falling in Love With Boating Discovering a love for boating can happen at an early age. Tim Bower I was probably a preteen when my father and I were guests of the older son of family friends. The son owned a fast, gold metal-flake speedboat, probably a Glastron. On its transom hung a towering pair [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5157,126,175,994],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-14963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-august-september-2025","category-boatingmag","category-how-to","category-off-my-dock","tag-boatingmag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}