Storm tactics and choice of drogue (if that held to be best approach)

[Roberto]

FWIW, I once inadvertently posted a picture from the OCC booklet of a commercial JSD with cones all shredded into pieces after one single use, pictures are copyrighted so I won't make the same mistake again but if you look through the "Flying fish" editions of a few years ago you can find the whole story, maybe worth investigating the make. Flying Fish past editions available free from
Flying Fish Archive

 

[RunAgroundHard]

FWIW, I once inadvertently posted a picture from the OCC booklet of a commercial JSD with cones all shredded into pieces after one single use, pictures are copyrighted so I won't make the same mistake again but if you look through the "Flying fish" editions of a few years ago you can find the whole story, maybe worth investigating the make. Flying Fish past editions available free from
Flying Fish Archive

That has been well discussed on other sites like Attainable Adventure Cruising. I believe it was a commercial JSD and that the company no longer makes them this way, hemmed seams are now normal. On hindsight I suspect everyone thought, yep, why would you leave a seam open, just sealed by heat.

 

[Dockhead]

For the OP: It will help your thinking about this, to know that in a survival storm, breaking waves don't typically break onto you. Although one did break on me once, with catastrophic consequences (a story for another time), this is not usual. Wave patterns usually travel at 23-25 knots and waves, even very steep ones, lift your boat. Most of the time when they are breaking, you will be lifted up and carried along. and the breaking part is aerated and lighter and you don't notice it so much.

The really dangerous thing is being picked up and lifted to the crest, and then speeding down the face of the wave, to slam into the back of the next wave. A pitchpole is the worst case of this, surprisingly common, but broach and roll is the other thing which can happen.

How a series drogue works is it prevents this speeding down the face of the wave. It holds you enough so that you just rise and fall with the waves. Making way slowly ahead all the time, with water flowing over the rudder in the right direction.