I was in the merchant marine for fifteen years, and i have known people to fake heart attacks to get off a ship, we had a transfer once, where we took a guy from an outward bound ship, who had a leg injury, we were heading for port, the following day he forgot he had a leg injury, and was walking about normally. Attended a sailboat mayday, to find the captain happily sailing the boat, and on the VHF he told us he handnt sent a mayday, and was fine, only to find, his crewman, was so sea sick, that he had set off the epirb, in the cabin, in order to get off.
Really, if you are not familiar enough with your boat, to be able to repair anything that needs repaired, and you are not capable of running in any weather, you really shouldnt be a couple of hundred miles from shore, they were slowly taking on water, did they have no battery power for their bilge pump, did they not have a manual bilge pump, because being that far off shore with no manual bilge pump is asking for trouble, were they so caught up in the push button world that they forgot you could use a bucket to bail out, did they have a bucket, why did they have the life raft on the deck, the boat is your best liferaft, you only get the liferaft out, when your toe rails are dipping under the water, and their is no chance your boat is going to stay afloat. Why were they running on the bare poles, did they not have a storm jib, or a storm sail, pretty stupid going out their this time of year without them, pretty stupid going out their any time of year without them. Running on the bare poles is a last resort, Looking at the pictures, it almost looks like they have the sail cover on the main, they have been sailing on the jib prior to this.
My guess would be they were making their way down to the caribean, which at this time of year, an awful lot of boats, head in that direction. Most of them, hug the US coast, and duck into marinas all the way down, some even go down the intercoastal, but quite a few, make the run out to Bermuda, then from Bermuda down to the caribean. If these people were doing that, then they were only a short way into their trip. Lots of people that have large sailboats, and take them out to sea, are often in way deeper than their own limitations, and after a few days of sea sickness, no sleep, eating cold food, that you cant keep down, it wears everyone down. A young guy sailed with me once, we were going out to Bermuda, and he was full of confidence, their was nothing he couldnt do, but when we hit really heavy weather, to the point we had the spreader in the water, it was a different story, he kept throwing up, he couldnt keep anything down. A boats capability, is limited by the crew capability, dosent matter what type of boat it is, or what equipment you have on board, if the crew cant take it, then you shouldnt even try it. People that do coastal sailing, going out for a day sail, and talking it all over in the bar that night, find that eight days running, in all weather, is a totaly different ball game.
When i lived in the UK, i was a member of a boat club, and some of the people in the club, got sponsorship to take part in the row across the atlantic, the skipper was experienced, but none of his crew had any offshore experience, for their training, they chose not row a boat on the sea, but to practice on rowing machines, they all got out to the canary islands, where the boat was delivered to, took one look at that big ocean, and the four crew decided they were not going, and flew back, leaving the skipper there, then they told a load of lies about the skipper to try to make out it was his fault they gave up, where in truth, they just didnt know what they were getting into.
