We learned a lot about sailing our boat in 30-40 knot winds on our passages from Antigua to Deshaies to the Saints and return then on to Barbuda. These high winds were quite unusual and the result was that we saw almost no boats on the water except in Guadeloupe. After 5 trips of 30+ sustained winds on a close reach or a beam reach, we definitely developed a comfort level with managing the boat in that wind strength. I can’t honestly say that the close reach was physically comfortable but it wasn’t bad, just a little rough at times when the waves arrived in the wrong sequence or broke over the boat.
At those wind speeds we were definitely double reefed on main and genoa, sometimes triple reefed on the gennie if we were seeing frequent gusts over 40 or prolonged gusts. We still happily tore along at over 8 knots, despite some wave bashing, which made the passages reasonably quick.
We were a couple of hours from Antigua when I was startled by a meteor blazing extremely bright as it tore across the sky right by us also heading north. I have never seen a meteor in the daylight before, let alone as close as this one was. The brightness was like looking at a welding torch. Just before winking out, a part of the meteor separated and descended in a jagged trail of smoke. Sorry no pics. My jaw just hung open a while.