We are the Grafs, Sharon and Michael, of Springfield, Illinois, proud owners of the Larabeck, a 42-foot yacht. Sharon is an ethnomusicologist at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Michael is an engineer who can build or fix just about anything and who caught the sailing bug at a very young age.

Read an in-depth interview of Michael and Sharon about how the Larabeck dream became a  reality.

More about us
--More about the Grafs
--How the Larabeck got its name
--land-locked friends

We left Florida in early May, 2010, sailing to the Panama Canal, the Galapagos Islands, and our longest trek--3000 miles--to the Marquesas Islands! We have meandered through French Polynesia, Niue, the Cook Islands, Tonga, and the eastern shore of the north island New Zealand. We toured NZ's south island by car with friends, then stayed in Auckland where Sharon researched south pacific music and culture at the University of Auckland. In late April, we returned to Tonga, spending the summer exploring it and the islands of Fiji. 

Sharon returned to Springfield in August to resume teaching. Michael and the Larabeck's newest crew member, Mari, will sail from Fiji to Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Australia where he will sell the boat.