Within a few hours our wind-speed indicator was pegged on 60 knots. By then I had taken down all the sails and we were lying a-hull. It was deceptively comfortable. At about 2 AM we rose on one wave and hung there for a moment and I knew we weren’t coming back. We fell off the wave and hit the water with the mast pointing down. We were sitting on the overhead and a wall of water was coming in the boat through the main hatch that had ripped off when we hit the bottom of the wave. When we righted, the water was up to the level of the bunks. However, we were lucky because we had the most efficient bilge pump in the world…..a frightened woman with a bucket. While kitty bailed, I took the plywood board that had been covering the life raft which was in the cockpit and bolted it over the companionway where the hatch cover had been. Imagine driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour in the pouring rain, sitting on the roof of your car, trying to nail a piece of plywood to the roof. That was what it was like. Finally I got the plywood fastened down and Kitty had bailed the boat almost dry and we huddled together hoping t would not happen again.