No comment about the water parts of the coverage area
(other than the Chesapeake, and Delaware Bays, with 1 foot
waves), other than a chance of rain.

TWC doesn't do marine forecasts - you can only rely on the fact that
the weather is going to be coming east.
Instead, it blew out the mainsail,
with a rip the entire length of the foot just below the first
reef.

We had the staysail rip at the top at a time when Bob didn't want to
go on deck to furl it. It was original equipment on the boat, and Bob
said it was dry rotted because the PO apparently didn't use it much.
We replaced it with a brand new (second hand, but still new) sail from
Bacons and made it a furling staysail and kept the self tending boom.
The 5-ticket ride has made the rigid inflatable dinghy look like
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. This is a somewhat new product, from Walker
Bay, and the rigid material doesn't allow the addition of, which
would allow, well-spaced lifting points as would be the case in a
fiberglass rigid inflatable. So, we use a lifting strap.
Unfortunately for the dinghy, this strap puts pressure under the
seats, and the bouncing and flailing, despite our having very
tightly cross-strapped it, caused one of the dinghy seats to take
flight, and the other to hang on by one attachment point. We'll
have to figure out some other means of suspension, as this one
clearly doesn't work. In the meantime, the remaining seat is off
the dinghy and on the boat.

Something very similar happened to us and I do not trust NOAA
forecasts unless I have some corroborative data. When we go offshore
other than just long from one inlet to the next, we listen to
Southbound II on the SSB. This is what I wrote at the time.

April 16
Winds were forecast to be 15-20 knots decreasing to 10 with 2 foot
waves. We could deal with that. But, when we got out into the bay, it
was indeed 20 knot winds, but instead of decreasing the winds got
stronger. Bob cooked bacon for himself for breakfast, which made me
nervous because I thought he would burn himself.

Later, I saw one gust up to 31 knots. And the waves got bigger and
bigger and were very close together. I estimate 8 feet [Note - in the
Chesapeake we have square waves especially when the wind is in
opposition to the tide - not like out in the ocean]. We were only
doing about 2 knots over the ground against the wind. The boat was
rearing up, banging down into a wave trough and green water was
washing back with considerable spray back to the dodger. We had the
dinghy on the davits with the motor on it [Note - we had never had the
motor on the dinghy on the davits before, and never will again], and
the solar panel mounted on the brace between the davits. The solar
panel was torn off with the brace and disappeared which made the
dinghy bang around because the brace was gone. Bob kept having to go
back (clipped to jacklines) to re secure the dinghy.

Anyway, we had been going to go to the Windmill Resort (whose
answering machine message said they were open at 7, but I called them
on the phone at 7:20 and was on hold for 5 minutes and no one
answered), but I lobbied for going in the York River instead. So we
did. But it took us 4 hours to get into the York River enough for the
waves to decrease.

What? The forward, huge, tank, is empty?? Do we have a leak? Or,
does the pump have a problem, and we just forgot how long it's
been since we filled the water tank (Beaufort, a very long time
ago, it feels like!)? That's my task for the afternoon, when I
really wanted to get some sleep, having had none in about 30
hours.

One of the things on our starting checklist is to check the water and
fuel tanks.

Once the weather settles down (I have not yet explored that
reality - and I've learned, more than once, not to trust NOAA, so
I don't fully know how we'll determine that)

You listen to several different weather sources. You have the weather
faxes - you look at them to see if what they show is going to agree
with what NOAA says that you will get. Myself, I listen to NOAA and
TWC, but also the local TV broadcasts (we've got a TV antenna that
came with the boat from the PO, and also a DirectTV satellite which
works as long as we are in our home area)