First boat

The first boat I owned was a little plywood box that my father built to the plans he bought from England. The plan was called the Gremlin. My boat was called Crawdad. My friend Bill's boat was called Crab. 

This is the only pic I could find of a Gremlin, in a French boat show, apparently.

We sailed around Toronto Harbour in our prams and rowed up and down the lagoons of the Toronto Islands, exploring, camping, fishing, keeping track of duck nests.

I think my father used the pram build to check out building in plywood. His next boat was an Arthur Piver-designed trimaran (a Nugget 24) which he named Kialoa.

His first boat was built with solid wood to the 16' Hampton Flattie design in Howard Chapelle's Boatbuilding book, and was called Ballerina. That's the boat I learned to sail on, and I've never sailed anything quite the same since. Very solid.