New Conservative wrote:

Along with lurid accounts of absurdly heavy weather, it's hazards
like this that are enough to put me off sailing (before I've even
started). Can anyone offer a few crumbs of comfort on the prospects of
surviving such encounters?

Yeah - this is a good lesson in "pick your weather". People on
delivery voyages seldom have that option. Pleasure sailing season in
the North Atlantic ISN'T in February IMO.

I bet the story wouldn't have been that exciting if they had gone in
May or June. In 3-1/2 years of sailing from Vancouver Canada, through
the Panama Canal and ending up in Annapolis MD, I can only recall 3
episodes of weather "bad enough" to remember (and nothing as bad as
the original poster). We got very good at watching the weather and
deciding for _ourselves_ when it was time to make a passage.

Evan Gatehouse