I think I put my first foot on the slippery slope in the fall of ’06 at the Annapolis Boat Show.  The Etap was the first boat we saw -- and that was a strategic blunder.  Every other boat (except the new C&C 115) looked like a floating RV by comparison.  The Etap was clean, efficient, built for sailing.  It had this knee-barker in the cockpit, but that was the price of boom-end sheeting; and the traveler could be unpinned for entertaining.

I’d had a Buccaneer 18’ racing dinghy for a decade, taught kids to sail at summer camp, taken a few week-long charters in benign locations.  But none of those put me on the slippery slope.  I’d taken several sailing classes; and one of the outfits had suggested that I look at their offshore class as the next step in my education.  It was the Etap CharterLease mailing list, and the regular announcements of moving the boat Punta Gorda and Stamford that wowed me.