It was quite a wild night. The severe weather was a series of events beginning on Monday afternoon and finishing early Tuesday. The effect of storm meant we could not go on our planned course to Eden due to wind and wave strength and direction that persisted afterwards.
When waves broke over the aft cabin top, from inside I could see water under the stainless cover of the air vent but none came into the cabin. When a wave broke over the top of the saloon cabin, water filled both side decks, pouring over the saloon windows both sides simultaneously. It went on for a while and at times it looked as if the outside water level was at the middle of one of the windows. Again, no water came inside. There were some dumps of water into the cockpit and the cord around the bottom of the lower wash boards was wet but kept water out.
We were all down below, cockpit was not the place to be. The fury outside stayed outside and it was ok, we had hot dinner and so on. I'd come out every now and then to check the storm jib and adjust auto pilot and look around.
The only damage was to the solid vang, which has gone floppy most likely due to failed gas spring. That may have happened anyway as it is 10 years and 18000 miles old - I suppose the gas cylinders regularly stop working.
