Do's and Don'ts of sailing in Gale/Force 8+

[duncan_m]

Hi all,

I was out sailing on Sunday in the Solent in some pretty windy conditions (30-35kts gusting 40kts) in a 37ft Sun Odyssey which was great fun.

It struck me while I was out that while my intuition lead most of my decisions and overall it was a cracking sail, that there must be a raft of advice and tactics to sailing in these conditions.

Based on who I had on the boat I kept things very simple and took beam reaches for the worst of the sea with only enough Genoa out to give the sail some shape (avg speed was ~8kts)...

Comments, advice & ideas invited!