If the Gulf Stream was cake, passing through the front from 1 a.m. until about 4 a.m. was the worst meal your mother made you eat. The wind had increased through the evening, and we were fully reefed — two reefs in the main and one in the staysail. Still, we kept going at about 5 knots with that substantial sea on our port quarter.

I tried to sleep starting at about 6 o’clock, but by 10, I hadn’t been able to find a comfortable position that would allow me to ignore the various bodily aches brought on by all that winching and crab-walking on the heeling foredeck. And by then, Monica was really drowsy, so I took over the watch.

First, I stayed in the port bunk with the help of the saloon table and the lee cloth. I tried to read a Jack Higgins novel, but I found I needed a headlamp because the cabin lighting on that side was dull. I brought a bag of tortilla chips with me, hoping the salt would keep me awake.

I’d eaten enough chips to get a thick feeling – not exactly full, but not lean and mean, either. So I went to the cockpit, eventually bringing a pad with me and finally sneaking in naps between the ringing of the kitchen timer. Below, Monica was sleeping soundly. From time to time, I’d turn the radar on just to be sure there wasn’t a ship out there in the dark. Yesterday afternoon, when there was a thick haze, we flipped on the radar and found a tanker about four miles off our stern. The ship responded to our call on channel 16 and said he was passing behind us. I wished him a good evening.

So as I was napping in the cockpit about 1 o’clock this morning, I saw a flash through my eyelids. I was really tired and didn’t want to open my eyes. But when I did, I saw constant lightning ahead.

Scrambling down the companionway ladder, I got into my foul weather gear and woke Monica just to let her know what was coming. Maybe I should have let her sleep, because although her eyes were always closed when I looked down into the cabin from the cockpit, she didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

As we entered the front, the wind instrument was showing an average of 15 to 18 knots. Knowing I’d be busy and that the visibility might be reduced, I turned on the engine so that I could run the radar constantly without robbing the autopilot of juice. And then it hit.

You could see the storm cells as green Rorschach blotches on the radar screen. Sometimes they were ahead, sometimes to the side. But soon they were all around and, from about 2 a.m. until 3:30, we were stuck in the middle.

The readout on the wind instrument ticked up. 19, 21, 22, 24, 25 …

With reduced sail, Robin cruised along at about 5 knots, some times a little higher, some times a bit lower. Her motion was not particularly harsh, but there was a lot of banging when her hull met steep waves, and at times the entire deck and dodger were drenched when the wind blew off the top of a wave, hurling it Robin’s length.

There was a long period when I considered heaving to. But on the radar, the end kept seeming to be just ahead, so I hesitated. I can’t say that I trust the wind instrument’s figures; it may need calibration. At times the howl of the wind belied the instrument reading. Knowing that, I still chose to consider how Robin was riding in deciding to keep sailing.

Finally sometime around 4 o’clock – I had missed the 2 a.m. log entry because I didn’t want to take my eyes off the boat – we emerged on the north side of the front. The lightning and thunder were behind us. We still had the southwest wind. But I no longer had the strength to keep my eyelids open, so I asked Monica to take over the watch. It was about 4:30 a.m.

A couple of hours later, the wind shifted to the northeast, as Herb had predicted on Thursday. Monica apologized for waking me. There was no need. The captain has to make all the decisions if a boat is going to run smoothly.

Robin was luffing, unable to hold within 60 compass degrees of the bearing to Newport, then about 85 miles away.

The wind was now about 12 to 15 knots, but with the still-shortened sail, Robin struggled to make a good tack. Finally, I shook out the reef in the staysail and one of the reefs in the main, let out about half of the genoa to work with the staysail, and Robin’s bow pulled to within 35 degrees of the bearing to Newport, now on a starboard tack, doing 6 knots.

If you look at iboatTrack, it may appear we are sailing toward Hoboken. Our course isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty darned good, given what the wind will allow us. We’re resisting the urge to say “At this rate, we’ll be in Newport by …”

Newport is 80 miles off our starboard bow.