The History Channel had a show "Killer Storm"--today. This is the "Perfect storm"--Late Oct 1991. What makes this unique amounst ocean storms is that it was tracked extensively, studied extensively by NOAA and involved many vessels, but was fairly close to the US and Canadian Mainland's. Winds reached gusts of 80 knots and waves estimated at as much as 60 feet. The footage in the History channel show is impressive. There are many storms, including hurricanes and cyclones which are far more severe. More boats and lives lost in the Queens Day Storm off New Zealand, the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race and the 1979 Fastnet race. Most boats involved in these latter storms were sailboats--and very few were purpose built power passagemakers. My personal experience was with a storm similar to the "Killer Storm"--sustained winds in excess of 65 knots, gusts to over 80 knots, Seas at least 45 feet. The boat was a full displacement, deep keel 53 foot on deck motor sailor, and the hull form was double ended under the water, with a high wineglass shaped transom. The hull had 30% of the weight in ballast. The aft cabin structure was as strong or stronger than the foreword pilot house. This configuration (full displacement, deep draft, double ended under water) is also an excellent ocean passagemaking hull form it is an easily driven hull and tracks well under severe conditions. I had read all of the books--including reports of previous documented storms, rollings and pitchpollings and a number of personal communications with people who had lost their boats by rolling or pitch polling. Our severe storm was in the middle of the North Atlantic, so there was no place hide. Three boats and about 28 lives were lost in this storm. There were other similar boats within VHF range. Two of us depended on auto pilots and one had a large crew--but no functioning auto pilot. In this situation, the first thought is to not allow the boat to come sideways to the waves--for the reasons Mike stated--a 20 foot breaking wave could capsize a 52 foot boat. A sea greater than 50 feet would pitchpole the boat. We did not yet have series drogues (for drogues and sea anchors see Earl Hinz's book: "Heavy Weather Tactics using Sea Anchors and Drogues"). I did have material which could have made a drogue (I had several large tires and 4x4 timbers chained together and ready to go)--but series drogues are much better for running--and I would carry one in today's world. We steered quartering off of the seas--boat speed 6 to 7 knots. Even with breaking waves, the prop and large rudder, (about 6 feet from top to bottom) rarely came out of the water. A very small sail kept the bow down wind. The boat would pick up speed as it went down a wave face, and then the breaking part would break over the boat--Although we did not broach--we did get at least partially sideways--and/or were hit by wave trains from the side--the boat rolled to 90 degrees once--over 60 degrees several times. A very heavy duty auto pilot did keep the boat relitatively on course. The boat without an auto pilot was a much greater risk--and had more damage. People became fatigued and made mistakes. The crew (2 of us) stayed in the pilot house or lower cabin amidships to attempt sleep (very difficult because of noise and motion). There was a great fatigue factor. Keeping prop wash against the rudder was important--since it allowed rudder response, even in turbulent breaking water--the small sail also helped in directional stability. If the situation had detiorrated to the point where I was concerned about pitchpolling I would have employed the drogue on a very long line--however I was aware of another boat, where when the stern was in the breaking part of the wave, as the bow was down, the wrap from the drogue became tangled in the prop--disabling the power option. I think that the quartering off also makes pitch polling less possible (going back to my surfing days--where quartering was much safer than running straight down large waves) A trawler which will encounter severe heavy weather should also have: high displacement, be ballasted, double ended or canoe stern, strongly built aft deckhouse, large rudder and a series drogue would be my choice. My personal feeling is that the boat would fair better quartering off than heading into the seas. We and several other larger boats had much more damage attempting to go thru the Straits of Gibraltar against 50 knots of wind and only 15 feet of steep seas. The books to have aboard would include "Heavy Weather Sailing", "The Annapolis Book of Seamanship", Steve Dashew's "Surviving the Storm", Larry Pardy's "Storm Tactics Handbook", "Heavy Weather Tactics Using Sea Anchors and Drogues", Shane's "Drag device data Base" and Shewmon's "The Sea Anchor and Drogues". May you never encounter this situation. Bob Austin