We sailed to Honolulu from NZ via Rapa Iti. Both legs beats all the way.

Strong winds - left NZ with double reefed main and never shook it out all the way to Papa Iti. Had hurricane force winds at anchor in Rapa Iti 74 MPH as recorded by the French Met station a few hundred yards away. Anchor both held and came up easy afterwards.

Last leg from Honolulu to Vancouver Island was frustratingly calm. Twenty one days and used a lot of fuel.

Have also been in bad storms at sea. Well, one bad storm and a few bad squalls.

Reading this story does raise some criticisms.

Not in any order.

Getting into a dinghy offshore in rough sea conditions is potential suicide.

Having a dinghy on davits on an ocean passage is foolhardy at best. As Jon used to say junk in de trunk.

She writes about a cleat whipping around in the wind like a baseball bat. Makes me wonder about how well it was attached that it broke loose.

Head sail line fraying? Does she mean jibsheet? What did it fray on? I am still using a set of jibsheets that I bought in Durban in 1997. Never had a jibsheet fray on anything. Is this an issue with boat design?

Line around prop? The last time I had a line around the prop was in Lake Michigan over 25 years ago. Learned my lesson then. I have snagged lobster pot and crab pot lines - difficult not to.

Sounds to me like they were naive about boat handling in storm conditions.

My bad storm story, 2004

Sailing Falmouth to Canaries. Got into a bad storm off the Iberian peninsula. Had a couple of hours warning. Blew 50 -60 knots for four days. Ran with wind on quarter on double reefed main, no jib - should have been triple reefed. Dragged everything but the kitchen sink off the stern. Anchor chain, anchor rode, maybe even an anchor - don't remember now. Jibe shattered mainsheet blocks bent mainsheet track. Main torn leech to luff. As I said, should have triple reefed. Storm shattered a couple of solar panels and shredded the doger & bimini.

Dan, you are absolutely right about fatigue - it was a big factor in this storm and I made some bad decisions. I later learned that a couple of boats that has left Gibraltar fared far worse in the same storm. Don't remember the details but I think one boat was lost.

When the storm blew itself out we were closer to Azores than Canaries so we headed there. Did some temporary repairs and headed for the Canaries. Made atrip home with a big shopping list.