I suffered a complete knockdown without any damage. It happened when we caught a 30 knots gust front when deploying the spinnaker. She laid over until the spreaders for both masts were in the water, stood back up and rounded into the wind on her own. The chute was pinned against the rigging but we started falling back off the wind so I blew the halyard and went shrimping. Other than some serious pucker factor and a very wet chute, there was no issue. We spent 10 min getting the chute out of the water, dropped the main, raised the staysail and blasted home in 40-50 knots of gale in the dark. The forecast was for a max of 25, go figure. BTW, the house (which was open) and the cockpit stayed dry, at least until we fished out the chute.
The boat
The chute
A similar ride
