As a long standing FReeper, let me indulge you with a Georges Bank experience. Our 15 meter ketch rigged yacht departs Newport, RI early June 2000 ... second AM out we're approximately 200 nautical miles out to sea ENE off Nantucket over the Georges Bank. We are experiencing 18-20 knot wind and 6 to 8 foot seas. A line running forward to the genoa catches under the edge of the forward hatch, goes taunt, and pops the forward hatch off like a cork coming out of a champagne bottle. Not a good thing, as we're headed for the Azores at least another 10-12 days away sailing east into the Atlantic.
We access our situation, we couldn't recover the hatch, having already made a temporary repair, and decide to turn back to Portland, Maine.
Long story short, our sailing trip was postponed to the following June of 2001. This trip was a successful crossing ... two weeks to the Azores ... then on into Gibraltar.
Why couldn’t you put a tarp over the hatch opening? With those winds, you were lucky not to have been hit, or the hatch to have damaged something.!