Maury and I have been sailing together since we started dating in the early 1970's. In fact, I doubt that he would have married me unless I sailed. Maury had not sailed until he moved to Toledo, Ohio with Owen-Corning Fiberglass, where he met some boat owners who needed crew for PERF races in Lake Erie. He loved the sport and saw that the really good big boat racers had learned to race in small one-design boats where you test your skills against boats just like yours and get immediate feedback each time you move. I came into the picture at about that time. He bought an Interlake, a one-design boat that was popular in the Mid-West, and we began to sail together, but I was left on shore when he could find better crew. That didn't sit well, so I flew out to Martha's Vineyard and took an intensive week-long sailing course at a Steve Colgate Sailing School. That's when things started to get serious in our relationship and in our sailing.

Maury intended to go back to big boats once he acquired some good racing skills in small boats, but we loved the small boat racing world and the camaraderie of the people in it. We were soon racing every Wednesday and Thursday evenings and going to a regatta every weekend. Boat handling and racing tactics became our pillow talk and as the years went on, the racing became a family sport and our children became part of the racing community.

In 1985, we moved to the East Coast and switched from Interlakes to Thistles that we sailed at Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey. We finally settled on racing Lightnings, mostly in Wednesday night club races on the Delaware River in Riverton, NJ, but the thought of getting a cruising boat that we could also race was never far from our minds.