If the original poster sails with a club-footed jib, someone with same might want to comment on how they get the jib trimmed to windward to backwind it. I know it's not as simple as tacking over and not releasing the sheet, my preferred method without the club.
Like Lee says, heaving-to is good when you need a rest, less motion or to "sail-in-place" waiting for better conditions.
I've never had to heave-to for stormy weather, but have for the above reasons.
Adlard Coles book, "Heavy Weather Sailing" is worth reading, as it relates tactics used on similar heavy displacement boats. According to him, there's a point in a building storm where large cresting/breaking waves will threaten to capsize a hove-to boat. This is when he would start sailing off wind, reducing the impact of oncoming waves, under storm jib, quartering the waves. Basically survival mode and likely actively steering the boat. This is what you rested up for while hove-to.
Eric Hiscock said he sailed around the world for 30 years before ever getting caught in a "big" storm, but was always prepared and planned passages carefully to avoid them.
