Sylvester's First Swim

Written by Jeremy McGreary

Trudy and Graham Norbury Aboard Luna Azul:
Trudy and Graham Norbury met at high school, in England, at the sweet ages of 16 and 17 and together pursued their passion for windsurfing on inland lakes in England and on holidays in Turkey.

When they moved to northern Virginia for work in the booming world of software development, lack of a windsurfing breeze drove them to explore other avenues for being on the water.

Graham had spent his childhood sailing with his father in the English Channel on classic wooden boats built for handling the often cold and gale-force conditions, but Trudy's sailing experience had been in dinghies in Poole Park. To test out Trudy's sea legs, they took a series of courses with Annapolis Sailing School.

"From the first moment we saw Luna Azul, a Nicholson 35, at anchor, we knew that her classic design and oceangoing capability were for us," says Graham. It was a bonus that she was built in Gosport, England. They bought her in July 1999 and sailed her on weekends and occasional holidays, not expecting that the bursting technology bubble would induce them to leave their large American house, move aboard, and go on a sailing adventure for a year. On October 12, 2002, they did just that, along with their two cats, Shadow and Sylvester.

On their way south, they made their first 24-hour offshore passage to shake down themselves as well as Luna Azul in preparation for crossing the Gulf Stream a month later. "We spent the winter in the Bahamas fishing, beachcombing, and making new friends," says Trudy, "and Graham got to race on a traditional Bahamian C-class racing boat--but it sank after a botched jibe."

A four-day, 825-mile offshore passage brought Luna Azul back to Beaufort, North Carolina, from where Graham and Trudy motorsailed to Oxford, Maryland. A planned cruise to Maine was scuppered by a lightning strike, but they had a fun summer crewing on a J/22 while Graham worked as an electrician/mechanic at Oxford Boatyard and Trudy reupholstered the saloon.

Graham and Trudy began their 2003/2004 winter season with a nine-day passage from Beaufort to St. Thomas, and after several months spent exploring the Virgin Islands, the south coast of Puerto Rico, and Luperón, in the Dominican Republic, they returned to the Bahamas. While there, they fished and caught up with friends from the previous winter. Graham raced on a Bahamian C-class boat that stayed afloat to place third at the annual Farmers Cay Regatta.

Having lived aboard Luna Azul for 18 months, Graham and Trudy suspect they'll continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Find Cruising World article at http://www.cruisingworld.com/article.jsp?ID=33984&typeID=419&catID=0

_{Crew: Trudy and Graham Norbury, and their cats Sylvester and Shadow}

_{Published
June 29, 2004 By Jermey McGreary in Cruising World}