Morpheus was designed by Carl Schumacher, built by Davie Norris Boatbuilders in New Zealand and launched in 2002. She spent her first 18 months cruising the South Pacific before reaching her home port of San Francisco. Since that time, Morpheus has been raced and cruised extensively. This blog will document her ongoing adventures.
Hi,
Happy Birthday Mom! From all of us on Morpheus! We had hoped to take you to dinner tonight but that doesn't look like it will work since we are still 125 km out at sea.
I just got off the 7am to 9am watch. The watch started with 33 knots of wind and gusts to about 37. With huge waves! But now we are down to 24knots and large waves.
We expect to get to
Love to you all,
Kath
Well, we have about 107 miles to go. It is 11:00 on Sat, 8/12, so we should get into the Bay at about 11 pm tonight. So much for our party! O well.
Patrick is on a mission to make it all the way home without putting a shirt on?? It's getting to be a bit of a challenge, but I'm betting he makes it!!
Waves are HUGE! But, they just keep rolling under us, so we just keep on going. Hope all is well. We'll see you all soon.
Deb
300 miles, 1.5 days about. see you Sat pm or Sunday am. wind is up, ,dbl reef main, no jib, sea is up. back on sea sick meds, but no one's sick. all well.
deb
290 miles out. Will be in touch as we get closer. Look for us late afternoon/evening.
20-25 a bit bumpy, but not too bad.
All well,
-Jim
- Jim Gregory
Well, the past 4 days have been very light. Once we worked our way north towards the center of the high and turned right, the high has been elongating towards the coast and keeping us right in the middle of an area of light air. Looks like we'll be in some better winds this evening, and then get to look forward to 25+ on the way in!!
When it rains, it pours??
Anyway, we will continue to motor East for now. Will put in a bit more to the North for insurance and look forward to an arrival sometime late Sat. most likely.
See you soon,
-Jim
- Jim Gregory
Hello All,
So,as you all know, Tom and I became very familiar with a lovely bucket in the cockpit of Morpheus during our first couple days of travel. When we were not adding to its contents I was becoming very familiar with the floor boards while Tom preferred studying the stars and clouds in a reclined position.
That time has passed. Now every morning we give thanks to the goddess mama of mal de mer medicine(Deb, of course!). She has good stuff!
We are now enjoying this voyage that never ends. We do our watches (Tom spotted a ship the other night), we sleep, we eat, we read, and we listen to Jim profess his greatness. He certainly got all the modesty genes in our family! I am most enjoying learning about the weather patterns and tracking our progress. Tom is most enjoying playing Pat's guitar and writing songs on his computer. We both enjoy the watches even though Tom brought to my attention that we have seen more garbage than sea life. I let him know that sometimes the trip doesn't quite match the travel brochure.
The Gregory's are great hosts and we are enjoying our time with them except we really miss Scott, KK, and Mike.
From 987 km west of the
Yo, ho, Yo, ho a Pirate's Life for me!
--Kathleen
PS: The Activitie's director has just announced today's activities:
10am: Sea Chanty's contest
1pm: Carving toothpick's from the fish bones Chris has caught
Should be a great day!
- Jim Gregory
Everything is well here. I just got off watch, and thought this would be a good time to send an update. It's also good to stay awake for a few minutes after my watch to make sure Patrick, who follows me in the watch rotation, stays awake. He has a tendency to fall asleep with his eyes open on watch. So, I throw a few things at him, then he stays awake.
Jim MacGuyvered the engine into working, so we are currently motoring through the high. Thank Goodness. It would have been a slow slog through this no wind zone with no engine. We have successfully avoided most squalls so far. Knock Wood.
Food is good, books are running low, maybe tomorrow we'll break out the cards. Have seen some birds, a few flying fish, and Jim saw dolphins, but didn't wake anyone up! Otherwise, just a lot of ocean. Moon is getting full, so we can usually see a bit at night, unless it's really cloudy. Stars last night were unbelievable!
All is well.
See you all soon,
Deb
- Jim Gregory
We are still here and all is well.
Last night was a bit of a challenge until we figured out what was happening. Scary to remember that only 3 inches of kevlar and balsa stand between you and the deep blue... O well, the boat is not sinking, the engine works to charge the batteries, and 50/50 as to if the drive shaft will stay together well enough and if the winch grease we have will last to a high enough temp to grease the drive shaft. If not, we sail through the high as ships have been doing for centuries.
Everyone is over their Mal de Mer. This is causing me to go hungry. I keep cooking what I think is enough for 6 people, 3 of whom are teenage boys, and I keep getting the last of the pot! O well, between no alcohol (we don't drink at sea) and the boys appetites, maybe I'll loose some weight!
Kath and Tom both feel well enough to read, so the books are beginning to make the rounds. We have about 20, which isn't near enough. I think Jim may even have to resort to reading my dressage magazines!
After 5 days, we've gone about 1/3 of the way. We'll be home in maybe 10 more days, depending on the engine and the high (where there is No wind.)
See you all soon-ish. Party at the dock in
- Deb
Boat Skipper Lat Long Weather Radio Call Destination
Bequia Dennis Ronk 36 43 150 37 East motoring WDA6026 Vallejo,CA
Elyxir Skip Ely no report WCU7764 Santa Cruz
Green
Hooligan Alice Martin 22 42 158 54 25kts 070 WDD2903
Horizon John Shampain 35 27 139 39 21kt030 squls WDA6773 Oceanside CA
Morpheus Jim Gregory 33 59 152 21 15kts 080 WDA7721 SF
Rainbow Cliff Shaw 39 01 151 45 no wind WDC9996
Riva David King 42 42 143 57 5kts 310 WDC9061
Spirit Patrick Lewis 38 46 148 50 8kts 110 WCZ5810 SF
Stray Cat Blues Bill Parks 39 02 149 24 10kts 045 WCZ6367
Valis Paul Elliott 40 11 153 36 9kts South WDB2898
Kyrnos Frederic Laffitte 37 44 150 49 10kts 070 WDA5034
The Contessa Shawn Throwe 32 16 153 16 12kts East WDC9358
Basic Instinct Jan Borjeson At HYC, shipping boat home SF
Irish Lady Denis Mahoney Returned to KYC, rudder broke off at hull exit,
shipping boat home
Locomotion Ted Morgan At Keehi loading on barge for shipping
Mureadritta's XL Nick Barron Sunk, crew safe on
Orizaba Doug Hannam In Honolulu with leak in rudder bearing. May restart ?
Bounty Jam Lightning Not in rollcall
Weather August 3, 2006, Thursday
Today: High at 41N148W at 1034 mb. Winds 10 kts from West at 42N138W. Winds
10 from NE or East below 38N. GALE at 38N125W offshore San Fran. 40 kts..
Suggest staying above 139N approaching the
24 hour fcst (midnight Fri, 4 Aug, HST): High 1033 mb at 41N 144W almost
stationary, moving toward 150W. Cold front has moved North of 50N. Gale off
SF 35 kts from North, inside 128 W.
48 hour fcst (midnight 5 Aug;, Sat): High 1032 mb at 38N150W stationary.
Winds generally light North of 40N, changing to West 10 from N 15 at 135W.
35 kts from N, seas 4 meters off San Fran
96 hr fcst: (midnight 7 Aug, Mon) : Seas 1.5 to 2 maetersSouth of 40 N, 2
to 3 meters Nothe of 40N. Winds SW 10 South of 40 N, 15 – 20 kts at 41N
from SW to NW, Off San Francisco winds 20 - 25 kts from N, 15 kts S of 38N.
- Jim Gregory
It always does....
Just before sunset, time to charge the batteries. Send young Patrick back to start up the engine. He forgets to put the engine in neutral first and starts it in reverse. Ouch, that can't be good for the engine. Luckily, he figures it out quickly and by the time I get to the throttle control he has us in neutral. Nice heart attack for all onboard in the mean time.
Now I figure that the prop is flipped into reverse position and I need to put the engine in fwd in order to properly feather the blades and return to neutral. I slow the boat heading into the wind and then shift into fwd.
"All holy hell" breaks out from what sounds like under the boat?? )*$%%$^ what was that?? I try again slowly this time, and those below scream up on deck that something is seriously wrong down below!! Seriously wrong??? How bad is it?? I ask about water entering the bilge??? None seen. Well that's good. I shut the engine down, put the boat back on autopilot and run below to see what's up. Chris already has the cover off the shaft and with a couple of flashlights (remember sunset?) we try to see what's happened?? Is the strut loose?? Cracks?? Holes?? Nothing...
Humm...that noise was not imagined so we work our way up the shaft to the "universal" that connects the shaft to the transmission. Something definitely wrong here.... Grease everywhere, the coupling normally attached to the shaft adaptor by six bolts is hanging by one (barely) and there are misc bolts and parts sitting in the bilge.
How in the world did this all come apart?? Starting in reverse doesn't force six bolts to unwind all at once?? Must have been working loose for some time now.
No water, no threat of water, and everything was still basically "in place". Good we are not going to sink. But...will we be able to ever use our engine on this trip? Or will we drift through the high??
Time will tell. Frederic Laffitte is 100 miles ahead of us. His company sells this "Aquadrive" coupler and we've been on the radio talking to him about it. We know how to put it back together and have the tools to do that. But...it requires "high temperature grease" and all we have in winch grease.
So...in a day or two when the wind drops I'll spend a few hours in the bilge and we'll see what happens.
Nothing to worry about, if we can't motor, we have sails and fuel for about 80 days of battery charging!!
Just another lesson that out here, you need to think through everything that you do. There are problems and potential disasters lurking everwhere just waiting for a chance to leap out and ruin your day (or your boat!)
August 2nd, 0515 HST
30 01N, 155 50W
19 knots
110M
Misc Squalls
Heading 45M
- Jim Gregory
