Kind of Darwinian going that fast without wearing life vests.

One final thought. The other word that has popped up a few times in this thread is "talent." I'd define talent as "a natural ability to learn from ones mistakes faster than most other folks." Couple that with my earlier quote on "Wisdom comes from experience and experience comes from making mistakes" and I would suggest that a talented boat driver would still benefit more from starting in a small high performance boat.