Long-distance sailors typically are driven by a desire to explore new horizons, a passion for being at sea or some combination of both.

But Delphine Lechifflart and Franck Rabilier may be the only ones driven by their love of performing acrobatic shows while suspended from the mast of their sailboat.

The French couple, who will perform two shows at Elliott Bay Marina in Seattle on Saturday and Thursday, use the mast, boom, rigging and other parts of their sailboat to perform aerial acrobatics. Since leaving their home in northwestern France in 2004, they have performed in Europe, the Caribbean and South America before heading for British Columbia and Washington for a series of shows this summer.

While would-be wanderers might drool with envy over the places the couple and their two young daughters have visited, Lechifflart said their journey is less about experiencing exotic ports than it is about performing.

"The first idea for us was to continue our art, but in our sailboat," she said during a recent stop on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. "As we want to share our art everywhere, we choose to travel."

And then there's the sailing. "We love sailing and being alone on the sea, connected only with the natural elements," said Lechifflart, 41.

How it began

As love stories go, Lechifflart and Rabilier's is the stuff of novels. They met in Paris in 1992 through friends while Lechifflart was studying art history at the school of the Musée de Louvre. Rabilier was an engineer and consultant, but his heart lay elsewhere.

Rabilier, 43, went to a circus training school as a child in Reims, about 80 miles from Paris, and caught the performing bug. His parents weren't keen on the circus as a career, steering young Franck into engineering instead.

But his interest in performing was kindled. After meeting Lechifflart, Rabilier started teaching her acrobatics. At first it was just for fun, but over the next decade they started working at it more seriously, taking classes in acrobats and theater and learning specific techniques.

In 1999 they started their own company, La Loupiote (which means "small light" in Old French), to mix circus and theater. They performed on streets and in theaters, honing their skills.

They also had another abiding interest: sailing. Both had sailed with their families as children and longed to get back on the water. In 2000, the year their daughter Loéva was born, they bought a half-finished, homemade boat, then spent the next four years finishing it. The plan was to take their show on the road — or more accurately, the ocean.

"Circusnavigation"

They went on tour in 2004, spending the next couple of years performing at ports in France, Portugal and Morocco. Initially, they had no plans to sail around the world on their 40-foot boat, also named La Loupiote. But French cultural officials were lukewarm about their work, Lechifflart said, making it difficult to get financial support.

"When we were performing, we were not performing in a theater or a certain place recognized by the [ministry of] culture," she said. "We were performing in a harbor, and they think there is no culture in a harbor."

And so began the couple's circumnavigation or "circusnavigation," as Lechifflart calls it. In 2007 they traveled in the French Caribbean and Canada, returning to France the following year to be with Rabilier's ailing father and await the birth of the second daughter, Ondja, now 3. Then they returned to their life of sailing and performing.

They are currently performing two 20-minute shows they created — "The Navigators," a Buster Keaton-influenced parody that pokes fun at inept sailors, and "Between Wing and Island," a duet focused on male-female relationships.

Performing on a sailboat is vastly different from being on a circus stage, Lechifflart said. The performing area is much smaller and there's little space to store the equipment typically used by circus performers. The couple use masks and aerial ribbons, but little else in the way of props.

The biggest challenge, though, is weather. The possibility of wind and waves makes some moves too dangerous to perform. A show in Quebec was canceled because of strong winds, while rough seas scuttled another one in the Caribbean. Rain also means a cancellation.

"The natural elements are our enemy or our partner," Lechifflart said. "It's so beautiful when you perform outside between the sea and the sky, but sometimes if there is some wind or some waves, it's difficult for us."

The shows at Elliott Bay Marina are free, as are the couple's other performances. They were paid for their performances in France, but in other countries they pass a hat for donations. The family lives on about $800 a month (about half that in Central America), saving money by avoiding marinas and not eating in restaurants.

The money they make is enough to live on, Lechifflart said, and they plan to travel and perform indefinitely.

"We can live without a lot of things and without a lot of money," she said. "We won't be rich, but it's not our goal."

Deborah Bach is the editor of Three Sheets Northwest (http://threesheetsnw.com), a local online news partner of The Seattle Times. The site provides news, community and resources for boaters in the Northwest.