Just to finish the story - the above-mentioned experience gave me a
quasi-mystical insight into the awesome power of the sea. For anyone
who's never heard the obscene shrieking of triple screws unsheathed
from the brine at full power for minutes at a time as a gargantuan
vessel pitches, rolls & yaws simultaneously to the extremes of the
envelope; followed by the thunderous explosion of a flat-face bow
smashing into a bottomless trough at thousands of tonnes mass ...then
loop the sequence for hours on end; it's probably difficult to conjure
just what horrors the sea can deliver I now understand why
coconuts-in-husk are probably the only *_truly seaworthy_* design.

However the 'takeaway' from all of the exceptionally good advice on
offer in this thread appears to be that 'seaworthiness is a
multi-dimensional challenge' & preparing for the worst involves
garnering a wide range of skills & resources ...including a first rate
liferaft & epirb.

If "fear of the sea" inspires one to take every precaution possible
right from the getgo, in order that others will not have to put their
lives at risk in order to extract one from what would otherwise be
one's watery grave; then surely its not such a bad thing?