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.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Only in New York!!
It's hard to tell from this picture. But this lady is parked in her car in the middle of Times Square, working away on her computer!!
Note the full on office setup. Computer, printer, light, and even flowers!!
Note the full on office setup. Computer, printer, light, and even flowers!!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Peggy/Bubbles should be happy!
Every Block Island Race Week is different, but one thing remains the same for me. We always seem to sail our best race first!!! With Peggy and Bubbles both home this year, it seems that the jinx must be either Pops or myself....
Good time, great regatta, great bunch of people onboard.
Can't wait to do it again!!
Friday, June 22, 2007
Well....we thought we won the first race on Thursday, but...
Looks like the race committee called the first race a bit differently than we saw it onboard Mutiny. We rounded the last mark in third did a bear away set and then a gybe. The wind went left another 5-10 degrees downwind, and when we gybed again we realized we were even with the guys to our left and racing for 1st!! Pretty exciting series of crosses, gybes, and a photo finish at the end. Three boats in three seconds. Wow!
The second race was just not our friend. We rounded the top mark again in third about half a boat length behind 2nd, and when we tried to hoist the bag came out of the hatch with the sail and then dropped off. So...80% of the spin. fell right into the water. Full on nightmare shrimping adventure. Wrap around the keel, etc. It is most likely an xSpinnaker now. That adventure put us in seventh approaching the leeward mark, when boat #6 inside of us decided to sail for the finish bouy rather than one of the gates. Unreal...we had to drop the spin, and tack around to get back to the leeward gate. Anyway....we managed to crawl back into 4th on the next leg, only to sail slowly downwind with the less than optimal light air VMG kite while running in 18-20 knots.
Maybe today will be more like the first race yesterday???
The second race was just not our friend. We rounded the top mark again in third about half a boat length behind 2nd, and when we tried to hoist the bag came out of the hatch with the sail and then dropped off. So...80% of the spin. fell right into the water. Full on nightmare shrimping adventure. Wrap around the keel, etc. It is most likely an xSpinnaker now. That adventure put us in seventh approaching the leeward mark, when boat #6 inside of us decided to sail for the finish bouy rather than one of the gates. Unreal...we had to drop the spin, and tack around to get back to the leeward gate. Anyway....we managed to crawl back into 4th on the next leg, only to sail slowly downwind with the less than optimal light air VMG kite while running in 18-20 knots.
Maybe today will be more like the first race yesterday???
Thursday, June 21, 2007
A few words...
In terms of results, we prefer Monday's to our last two days. However, the difference between 1st and mid-fleet in this class is about one mistake. It's not too hard to make a few of them around the race course and many of these races are being lost rather than won.
In the round the island race, we got caught in two huge traffic jams at the first two marks. Hard to say if we could have avoided them and done any better. The small boats started first, and with the foul current slowing everyone down, it was the first two marks that involved the most compression between all the classes. We opted to play the the port layline for clear air on both of these roundings. Our hope was to shoot through to clear air on stbd after rounding, but no holes appeared and we ended up joining the crowd rounding each mark while some of our competitors found better openings and shot ahead. We also gybed out for clear air early on the run down the island and then the wind shifted to the left on the run, basically forcing us to consolidate a loss...
Yesterdays racing was very close. Good starts, but we overstood mark #1 in the fog and spent the rest of the race catching up. Our ability to pass boats that race was really a credit to our crew work which was exceptional while others had some real trouble rounding marks. In Race #2, we were on the outside of a shift that put us in third, and then ducked one boat that ended up on the stbd layline. Bummer....we then overstood by 5-7 boat lengths allowing another to squeeze in at the mark. Although separated by only a boat length or two, it was back and forth from there with very little change for the rest of the race.
We'll try to do better today.....boatspeed is fine to very good relative to others. Gibb's doing a great job driving. No reason to think that things can't return to consistent top 4 finishes. That's our goal....
In the round the island race, we got caught in two huge traffic jams at the first two marks. Hard to say if we could have avoided them and done any better. The small boats started first, and with the foul current slowing everyone down, it was the first two marks that involved the most compression between all the classes. We opted to play the the port layline for clear air on both of these roundings. Our hope was to shoot through to clear air on stbd after rounding, but no holes appeared and we ended up joining the crowd rounding each mark while some of our competitors found better openings and shot ahead. We also gybed out for clear air early on the run down the island and then the wind shifted to the left on the run, basically forcing us to consolidate a loss...
Yesterdays racing was very close. Good starts, but we overstood mark #1 in the fog and spent the rest of the race catching up. Our ability to pass boats that race was really a credit to our crew work which was exceptional while others had some real trouble rounding marks. In Race #2, we were on the outside of a shift that put us in third, and then ducked one boat that ended up on the stbd layline. Bummer....we then overstood by 5-7 boat lengths allowing another to squeeze in at the mark. Although separated by only a boat length or two, it was back and forth from there with very little change for the rest of the race.
We'll try to do better today.....boatspeed is fine to very good relative to others. Gibb's doing a great job driving. No reason to think that things can't return to consistent top 4 finishes. That's our goal....
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