off the Baja Coast about 300 miles south of San Diego and it wasn't pretty. We were in huge seas with 30 plus knots of wind in my Cape Dory 30. I had gone forward and struck the stay sail and put up the storm jib and drug the sail aft to the cockpit. I was lazy or really just to damn tired to stuff the sail into it's bag and just pushed it under a removeable seat which extended the bridge deck out into the cockpit. That seat made it easy to sleep or stretch out and we had installed it because we were tired ans it seemed a good idea at the time. About an hour later we got pooped and the sail kept the water from draining out. While we were trying the get the sail pulled away from the scuppers another wave came but the boat was able to ride over this one. When we finely got the water clear I noticed that we were on fire. Water had flooded into the ignition key slot and shorted the the switch which melted some of the wires. I managed to get the battery switch off but not before the instrument panel was toast. I was able to get the engine started by using a remote switch that I used to set the valves and jury rig the alternator but for the rest of the trip to Cabo we didn't have any instruments. You talk about a learning curve. The first thing I did on Brendon after I bought her was to cut the instruments out of the cockpit and fill the panel hole with a hatch. Now the only instruments are in the pilot house.