Riding out gale force winds and relaxing afterwards

We had winds building from day 3 and by day 4 we were getting consistent 30 knots of wind. This made for some interesting sailing. It was pleasing to note that the autohelm  was able to handle the winds and big seas however the boat itself was quite uncomfortable as we were sailing close hauled and pounding into the waves. To add to this we had rain as well. See below video of the boat sailing to weather before the gale force winds hit.

By day 5 out from Vancouver Island we started seeing sustained winds in excess of 35 knots that blew the wind indicator off the top of the mast and did other damage. Most of it was minor and externally the boat performed marvelously well. However the same cannot be said for the interior. I discovered that the interior wood work was not made for the ardours of offshore sailing. This resulted in draws falling out and braking their latches, the couch tearing out of the floor and so on. Additionally we started taking on water through one of the hatches. This forced me to heave to (park) the boat to conduct temporary repairs, and pump the water out of the boat. After heaving to for about 6 hours we were able to keep sailing. See below the state of the cabin during this time with the chaos below decks.

Cabin in disarray after the Gale

Loree sleeping in the Lee cloth to prevent her falling out of the bunk

Once the gale was over the weather became more much more pleasant and we went from too much wind to light wind to no wind. I took the opportunity of the wind change after the storm and our new down wind sailing angle to put up the spinnaker and Loree took the chance of the calmer conditions to do some fantastic cooking. Things then relaxed into some rather lovely cruising conditions.

Justin hoisting the spinnaker

Loree doing some baking

Vada happy to be relaxing in the sunchine