Really excited! Finally found some advise on how to handle bad storms. Heaving-To. The important addition to normal heaving-to understanding for low winds speeds is the boat must not be moving forwards as it will get out from behind the protective slick it creates just being blown downwind. Slick disrupts the seas and prevents waves breaking on the boat. Heaving to in gale force winds normally achieved with trysail only (or triple reefed main). In very strong winds requires sea anchor out with a pennant line to stern to achieve the 50° to the wind you need.
All the details are in Lin and Larry Pardey’s Storm Tactics Handbook (opens in a new window). I see a new version is due for publication in the summer. They have a web site (opens in new window). Diagram below shows how it works. The data in the book is very impressive. For example in the Fasnet of 1979 of the 300 starting boats 158 felt they had to employ special storm tactics. 100 suffered full knockdowns and 77 reported being rolled over. Whats tactics did they use, 26 hove-to under sail alone, 86 lay ahull and 46 ran before the wind some with some without towed warps. None of the 26 boats hove-to reported being rolled or suffering major damage. All the boats filled in a questionnaire – question B2 was were you knocked down beyond 90°. A B2 knockdown became the jargon way of describing a severe knockdown after that.

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