Martin Baxter wrote:
Lets be a little more realistic here. I am sure that for each
commercial vessel and many private vessels that there exists at least on
person with their feet on terra firma with a reasonable notion as to
said vessel's wherabouts at any given time.

Certainly there are. That was never in question. What Moron wrote was:

"ham radio routing would inform all vessels in the area of her
route and location ..."

Merchant ships at sea do not monitor hobby radio as a means of traffic
advisory.

"... satellite phones are on most commercial and private yachts ..."

So what? The people who were monitoring her passage did not have
information on which merchant ships were in her area at any given time,
who managed those ships, how to contact the ship managers, and certainly
did not have access to sat phone numbers for those ships.

I am equally sure that there does not exist a single person or
entity with information of all vessels whereabouts at the same time.

That is precisely the point. And if there were the likelihood of them
divulging any of that information to some yachtie is slim to zilch.

How many vessels are at sea at any given time, how many shipping
companies, how many independant operators, how many ports..... and how
do you collect the required information from all of them and collate it?

As OTN pointed out, AMVERS is a system by which merchant vessels provide
location and weather information and supply contact information for use
by SAR organizations. The number of AMVERS subscribed ships is quite
small proportional to the world merchant fleet.

"They would be in contravention if no sail plan was filed ... "

Sail plan? Merchant ships do not file "sail plans" with any central
authority. Contravention? WTF?

"More than likely that every vessel passing close to her route
would have been informed."

The point is, informed by whom by what means? Shipping is a very quiet
business and shipowners and managers are not too keen on telling the
world who is where and going in what direction while on the open sea.
And while sailing yachts may be fun to watch at sea, tracking them is
more than the crew has time or desire to do.

Rick