If it appears on iBoatTrack.com that Robin is going backward at about 3 knots, don’t be shocked.

We hove-to again last night at about 1:30 a.m. and are eating up the miles toward Bermuda or the Azores!

It appears that what we ran into in the wee hours was the low that was forecast by our friend from the Bermuda weather service. If it is not, I sure hope there isn’t yet another one waiting to blast us.

I had found by chance a way for Robin to be steered with her autopilot ram in place and the tiller lashed to starboard against it. With just the staysail up, she held a course in the southwesterly wind that was keeping us close to the rhumb line. We were about 100 miles from our waypoint on the north side of the Gulf Stream.

But then, making a steady 4 to 5 knots, we had to make a decision as the wind increased to what I would guess was gale force.

The boat could probably have kept going with no damage, but we were  being slammed about. (We will have the bruises to prove it.)

Ricocheting off various hard parts of Robin’s interior and exterior, we avoided serious injury. But at this point, we had to wonder what the purpose was.

We are not serious racers. We are cruisers. We didn’t sign on to let ourselves be molested.

So we decided to heave-to. I did a poor job of it, I’m afraid.

The hove-to position is with the jib tight and back-winded and the tiller pushed to windward. (Forgive me if I’m repeating myself.) The back-winded jib tries to push the bow off the wind. The tiller and rudder try to push the bow into the wind. Their efforts negate each other, and the boat sits comfortably in equilibrium, making little or no headway.

I was unable to get the staysail in tight in the midst of the turn that would set up the position. As a result, the belly in the sail gave it the ability to overpower the effect of the rudder. So we sailed off the wind at 1.5 to 2.5 knots.

We’re still doing that at 8:15 Monday morning. And it’s not a “blue Monday,” like in the song. It’s gray with a high overcast and the wind still moaning in the rigging, doing perhaps 20 knots.

And right now, the wind appears to be coming from the northwest, the very direction we need to head.

So Monica and I have agreed to wait for the weather to change and give us some help. What we lose right now in relative comfort we’ll make up later on, also in comfort.

If we get dead calm, which the Bermuda forecaster said with emphasis that we will not, we probably will drop out of the race and motor as far as necessary to make up for lost ground.

If the wind is there, then, of course, we will sail.

By now, we’re looking forward to seeing family and friends, and Monica is still hoping to make it to the wedding of her good friend Sarah Smith on Saturday in Philadelphia.

I have to say, it is a very good thing that Monica and I get along so well. Her company and her attitude make this unpleasantness bearable — if not forgettable.