Michael & Sharon on S/V Larabeck
Michael
He is an engineer who can build or fix just about anything and who caught the sailing bug at a young age. He was born in Luebeck Germany, a city with a long maritime history. His first sailing experience was in the boy scouts with a small boat called an "Optimist" and later took up windsurfing. He outfitted his own "surfmobile" van in Germany, which took him to many windy destinations with his windsurfing boards including the North and Baltic Seas and the Mediterranean. Moving to the U.S. in 1989, he continued to explore windsurfing opportunities including Lake Michigan, Columbia River Gorge, Cape Hatteras, and Corpus Christi. Michael came to the U.S. to help a German company start a subsidiary that manufactured bag filling equipment. He has been designing packaging and material handling systems ever since. In the last years he has refit the current Larabeck, a 1985 Passport 47 Center Cockpit cutter rigged sloop. Michael's combination of engineering knowledge, hands on skills, and sailing experience keep the Larabeck sailing smoothly.
Sharon
is an ethnomusicologist at the University of Illinois at S pringfield. She has always enjoyed music, travelling, and being outdoors. The combination of these interests inspired her to learn about American traditional music, and eventually to study musics from around the globe. She was born in Laramie, Wyoming, where she explored mountains and prairies on horseback and on skis. She met Michael in 1989, and with her love of the outdoors already firmly established, it was easy to become interested in sailing. After the 2010 trip, Sharon developed courses that explore Pacific Island Arts and “ways of knowing on the sea.” This 2021 voyage gives her a chance to expand her knowledge of the culture and music of the Pacific and continue share it with her students and colleagues. Sharon is an active fiddler and has judged and won several contests. She has her fiddle with her on board Larabeck and enjoys playing music with people she meets along her travels.
