Pulling a shroud pin to drop the mast is probably the best/quickest/safest way to drop the stick but I would still want to flip the boat over, just to keep the tramp down low, as in under water, and then just sit between the hulls on the underside of the tramp, using the mast/sails underwater as a sea anchor.
I think the biggest 'problem' in this event was recognition. Nobody knew the winds would turn out to be 80mph. I've been out when 'a storm was coming' and you can usually see them coming from a ways off, you'll certainly hear it if there's lightning in it... but I'm usually thinking, is it going to be 20mph...or 30...or maybe 40? But 80?? I never would have thought it would have been blowing THAT hard!
I think that's probably why so many guys were caught up short of taking the sails down, etc, hindsight is always 20-20.
Indeed - a lot of racers might be inclined to approach that storm with a little more "yee-haw!". I remember a Tybee500 start with a fairly significant storm cell just offshore and to the North. It was cranking on the beach for the start. Mischa and others headed right for the storm cell offshore. I thought they were crazy. I finished about 4 hours behind them that day and re-evaluated my desire to stay away from those storms.
And, BTW, I would never recommend tying yourself to the boat.
