That's a really good point Rich. In many cases the boat is just fine.
However the crew, through fear, are the ones who don't weather the storm. No
pun intended. Fear is natural. I have been scared for my life at sea only to
find that the boat was more than capable of handling the conditions. There
are well documented cases of people abandoning their boats only have the
boat found, at a later date, in a somewhat messy but seaworthy condition.

I read somewhere (sorry I can't remember where) that nearly half of all boats
that are abandoned in a storm are found later floating and in some kind of
working order. They were saying that the danger of abandoning the boat was
far greater than the danger of staying on board in at least half of those
conditions. One story I read the boat was taking on water and heeling so
much that the bilge pump wouldn't pump out any water. It was about three
feet deep in the cabin. The boat was found later with the pump running on
batteries after a week or so and no water inside to speak of. The
investigation says that the captain trying to steer the boat in such heavy
winds caused it to heel so muh and caused most of the problems they were
having. Jumping ino the ocean during a storm to be rescued was much more
dangerous than staying on a boat that was floating around for over a week
with no problems that would be life threatening. I am really curious as to
what they could have done differently. It seems that the people that trust
thier boat and thier ability to survive tend to do so much more than those
that can't handle the ride.

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