Welcome and keep at it, you'll get em. my outtings are also few and far between... I have only had the opportunity to go out swording 6 times, catching fish on two of the last three trips... (im landlocked at college)
It took me about two years of reading forum stuff and four trips to develop what i believe to be a darn good system for swordfishig as far as my rigs, balloons, weights, leaders, and lights etc. HOWEVER...
what matters the absolute most is knowing where the fish are and knowing that you are on the right numbers, becuase i have rigged up everything perfectly, gone out and fished all ngiht only to discover that my #s were way off and i coulda had 20 lines out and not caught a single fish. more or less wasted opportunity/wasted money and wasted time
so.. TALK TO THE CAPTAINS, get to know people, when someone posts that they caught a fish and is willing to tell you where, write it down and keep track of it. use your age as an advantage. Im pretty sure thats one of the reasons famous captains like Bouncer are willing to show me how to rig or how to get a kite up in the air. It will definatly make a difference,
good luck man!