great video

wow, i'm glad i got to see it at home or the guys at work woulda had a heck of a sight. that's just how i got started - rowboat, runabout, dad, granpa the whole deal -jeff

I love boating and i must say it has so many memories that i would never want to lose and i am so happy they have happend i just cant believe how true that was. I have watched it 2 times and its like 1130 and im going to watch it one more time befor ei leave thankyou for the video it was amazing and i hope one day when i pas that i can look back and see what my father and mother did to give me such a great life and ee there smiles just from being together on the boat. its a totally diffeant lif when your on a boat

wow that video really hits you

Great video! Made me really appreciate my family and all the good times we have had.

Here's another one for having a G-Pa that is responsible for my boating life. May have only been a 5hp Eska on a 12' flatbottom, but the memories are priceless.
Only regret is we don't have kids ourselves to make new ones.

Great Video!

The last thing I expecting when coming into the board today was to be waylayed by something so emotional and meaningful.

My Father was into boats from the early '50s when his family boat a resort on Bangs lake in Wauconda Illinois. By the time I was born in 1957 he had graduated from fishing boats to what were reagarded at the time as high performance boats. He was known to have the "fastest boat on the lake" every year for many years.

He was hit by a car and killed in early '68. I was 10 and although a lot of things died with him that day, his love for boating stuck with me through all of these years and is as strong inside me today as it was inside him back then.

While this sport will always be my passion, there have been only certain times in my life when I have been able to indulge and participate. For the first 25 years after my Fathers death, I always had at least one boat (and for several years owned a dealership). However because of some dishonest people in my life and other circumstances (horrible luck being one), its been a long time since I've enjoyed it to the level that I want to.

I've been lucky to have married a woman who loves me for 22 years in a marriage that has produced three of the most wonderful daughters a man could hope for. While my career has produced success, I've never been able to get where I should have been with the financial rewards (money is the byproduct of success, not the success itself), therefore I have not for a lot of my life been able to live my passion.

I want you people on this board to know that I envey you for your accomplishments and because of this board I'm able to reach some level of particpation. I truly appreciate that participation.

Now, if its OK with everyone, I'm going to go back to sobbing like a f-ing baby.

Thanks to everyone

Watched it for the second time. Today on my 28th birthday and thinking about my dad and grandpa (former U.S. Navy) and thinking about my son 9 months old and how I hope I can keep this tradition going. Gentlemen .............This is the saga of our lives.

My best memories are on the lake. My boating started at a young age helping tend trotlines on john boats. Here is my son on our Sea Ray at just a few months old, then again when he was two.





I just cant keep him awake...

can't believe I almost skipped this one, my Dad and his brother loved boats, but my mom was a crab and after they married he never had another one till he was about 73, now at 79 he is not in good enough shape to run it it Some of my best memories from childhood are riding on my uncles boat. I know my Dad would have liked to have had a boat earlier in life when he really could have enjoyed it. I think it's probably one of the reasons I would never try to get Ian to give boating up is because I saw how much it bother my Dad not to have one.

This video also makes me think of Bill27 who passed away suddenly a year ago. He was making those type of memories for his children, he even helped start a group called the Tot Lot that gathered boaters together who had kids. His wife knew how important it was and kept their 35' Formula and learned to run it herself so the kids would not miss out on some of the best memories of their lives. Thanks for sharing, & pardon me while I blow my nose.