NORFOLK (AP) -- Peggi Christensen can make her home shipshape in 10 minutes. That sort of efficiency allows her to burn through 15 hardcovers a week, exercise at the gym and watch sunsets.

Peggi and her husband Peter call home a 43-foot sailboat. It sleeps six, has a galley and two full baths and is equipped with radar, auto piloting, chart plotting and collision alarm systems.

While they do travel, most of the time they can be found docked at Scott's Creek Marina, not far from other boats that hold year-round residents.

Scott's Creek Marina counts 12 year-rounders in its 127 slips, about 9 percent of the total.

Ocean Marine Yacht Center in Portsmouth estimates that about 20 percent of the 125 docking spaces are held by live aboards.

And Tidewater Yacht Marina, also in Portsmouth, says that while it is not accepting more live aboards, 25 of its 300 slips and dock spaces are rented by them. That's 8 percent of the whole.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)