“Gates, you’re doing great!’’ my wife and I took turns piping up, the way parents do when dread fear visits their doorstep and they are forced to channel near-hallucinatory panic. “Can’t believe you never sailed before this summer . . . Wow! . . . Hey, what about that other boat heading right for us? . . . Does your boat always bump like this? . . . Why does the sail sound like it’s ready to shred? . . . Tell me again, which boat out here — it is out here, right? — would come our way if we somehow, you know, got into trouble, or, uh, tipped over?’’

I am not sure what I’ll be like when Gates, now 13, begins to drive. Thankfully, that’s a few years away. But I do know, despite his steady hand, seafarer’s confidence, and captain’s bark (bossy like you can’t believe!), it was incredibly unnerving to have my prepubescent kid take total charge of the little sailboat, tell his parents not to worry (say what?!), then zigzag all around the expansive patch of water between the Mass. Ave and Longfellow bridges that is the domain of the decades-old Community Boating Inc.

CBI, in the shadow of the Hatch Shell, is a wonderful place, as well as the city’s No. 1 summer sports bargain. Kids pay one dollar (we repeat: one dollar) and can spend the entire summer on the docks, learn how to sail or kayak or windsurf. If sailing is their thing, they ultimately get the pleasure of commandeering a family sail — also known as watching your landlubber parents, at least one of them, turn knuckles white and gills green. All that for a buck.

“You should hear some of the conversations I have about that dollar,’’ said Amy Lyons, director of CBI’s junior program. “Parents are like, ‘OK, one dollar to register, then how much for lessons or rentals or what have you?’ And I say, ‘No, a dollar, that’s it. We’ll teach your child to sail or kayak, whatever. But that’s all you have to pay.’

“Just a dollar. I know, it is kind of ridiculous, isn’t it?’’

CBI is not the only sailing center in the city that hands kids such bountiful gifts. The Courageous Sailing Center (Charlestown), Piers Park Sailing (East Boston), and the Harry McDonough Sailing Program (Castle Island, Southie) all have junior programs. Piers Park tailors its program to disadvantaged and at-risk children. All of the centers charge somewhere between nothing and next-to-nothing.

In a culture of $600-a-week sports camps, these sailing programs sprinkled around the city all but have a profile of Mother Teresa stenciled across the bow of every boat. I’m not sure I got the right nautical term there, but I am sure that I won’t ask the way-too-bossy junior skipper in my house.

Almost two years later, I did ask Gates the other night what it was about the family sail that brought out his, shall we say, edge. Mind you, as parents we were thrilled to witness his new-found skill, and ecstatic at his obvious sense of empowerment and how seriously he took his charge. All for a buck, no less. But, man, what was the Cap’n Bligh act?

“Just that I get nervous out there,’’ he said. “It’s not like when you’re driving a car and there’s just that one thing going on. All you have to do is steer a car. A boat, you can capsize when you go into the wind, capsize when you go into a circle, capsize . . .’’

Got it, I interjected, and silently I said to myself, “No way in Gilligan’s green island will I ever be out there again.’’

Turns out, I’m not the only parent ever to peer into the river’s waters and find a reflection of Woody Allen staring back during the family sail. Lyons, who grew up in Duxbury but never paid the water much mind until her student days at Providence College, regularly witnesses such uber-angst when parents are turned first mates to their child’s admiral.

“I know what they’re thinking,’’ she said. “First it’s, ‘OK, uh, you’ve been at this for just a few weeks — do you really know what you’re doing?’ Then they’re out there, in the middle of the river, thinking, ‘Uh-oh, now what?!’

“But before you know it, they’re back here at the dock, everything’s great, and they can’t believe their kid did it!’’

Yep. And I went along with it. All the while, deep inside I was thrilled that my kid, in just a few weeks, took ownership of something I never attempted, added a life skill and recreation piece, maybe found a sport that he can take up competitively.

Perhaps one day he’ll get himself a huge yacht and ask his parents to work the kitchen. Big dreams often start so small. I hope he enjoys it and ask only that he sends back a postcard from Bali.

“Kayaks,’’ my son said when I asked what he has liked most in his CBI experiences. “I really like the ocean kayaks. They go so fast! You get it in the water, and at first it feels like you will sink. But it’s so light and buoyant, it actually floats.’’

OK, good to know. Even better, the family sail is not part of the ocean kayak experience.

Kevin Paul Dupont’s “On Second Thought’’ appears on Page 2 of the Sunday Globe Sports section. He can be reached at dupont@globe.com.