Pete,
I was anything but at ease. When you and I were beating back Saturday, the wind and the waves had built significantly. Those were very TOUGH conditions for me or anybody. Don't beat yourself up. You did very well. NOAA had issued a squall warning for the storm we were sailing in, which means minimum top wind speed 25 mph+ with gusts reported from the NOAA alert at 35 knots. The warning was issued about the time I was finishing jury rigging my boat back from the spin pole failure (131 channel marker) and got really bad about 5 miles east of the marker. Those are tough conditions for anybody. PS. I recommend that you always wear your VHF/weather radio for distance races and don't tell your new crew it was bad until you hit the beach!