This was 2 weeks ago. Picture a J shaped cove, with winds from the west, 15 to 20, gusting 30. I was anchored with my M15 at the bottom of the scoop, and so had good enough protection from those westerlies. But it was time to go. My goal was to sail out of the scoop of the J, northwest, then turn left 180 to 210 degrees, to come around outside the bottom of the J, and have an easy run eastward for several miles. I couldn't recall ever sailing solo in that kind of wind before. I double reefed before weighing anchor. Looked at the whitecaps forming, out there, beyond the scoop. Left the jib down, secured to hull, in its jib bag. Bad idea. Once I climbed high enough northwestwards inside the J for the westerlies to hit in earnest, I found I could no longer tack. Ahull to the wind - as I had no motor - mainsheet loose, I raised the jib. By that time (had to go forward to remove the jib cover!) we'd nearly drifted back to where we'd started. Began tacking back and forth, and to my delight we were actually making progress to windward, tack by tack, more and more up out of the bottom scoop of the J. Once high enough, there was only one tack where I had to chicken gybe, as I couldn't complete the tack against the 20 to 30 winds and was too close to shore to do otherwise. But after about 45 minutes of tacking, we'd made it far enough out of the scoop of the J, to the northwest, where a long slow 2 to 3 mph beam reach to the south, into whitecaps, had us safely out of the J, coming along even with its bottom, to where we could finally turn counterclockwise another 90 degrees, to the east, for a broad reach, and get blown about 7 miles back to base, on a quiet no drama run. I know it's been said before in this forum to leave that jib up, even with a double reefed main, but I guess I had to learn the lesson the hard way first! The whole experience left me in awe of the M15, where, how despite the 20 mph plus winds, we still could successfully tack over and over and make steady progress to windward so as to be able to sail out of that leeward cove. Fair winds, - Brad