Though less than 8 feet long, the Optimist-Pram helps boys and girls develop the qualities of competent boatmen.
Boating has had an appeal since the beginning of history. Archaeologists have discovered signs of boats back into the Stone Age. Floating on rafts or simple dugouts along streams and shores was one of the earliest forms of transportation, pre-dating the wheel and axle a couple of thousand years. With water covering 70 percent of the earth’s surface, boating helped the spread of civilization. Recent discoveries in the Pyramids show that finished boats with masts and sails were enjoyed in Egypt over 4.000 years ago, and boating together with fishing and hunting were the chief recreations and sports of those days. With the help of sailing ships the western world was discovered, colonized and made independent. Almost no other sport has such an important history. Every youngster likes boats, first to float ‘em in a handy mudpuddle after a shower, perhaps with simple little paper sails. Then bigger ones in some park lake or along some convenient shore. And later, to save effort, in a rowboat or canoe to sail leisurely downwind with the aid of an umbrella or such. And this was perhaps followed by an improvised sail. How many of you remember your first great thrill in your first small sailboat, of feeling the lift when the breeze filled the sail and the boat responded to your movement of the tiller? And then realized after your first two tacks that you had actually worked to windward of your starting point. You then began to get sailing in your blood
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