John Dubock and I were the guys you saw down at Charleston. We too were on 7.5s, and we too got some screaming reaches, but we also spent quite a bit of time schlogging; sounds as if it was a bit better where you were.
In downtown Charleston, the wind look like this:
http://homepage.mac.com/jsouthwick/PhotoAlbum82.html
The wind speed graph doesn't do justice to how gusty it was (too much averaging going on) but the wide band of wind directions tells the story.