NO! 
That guy was just in the lamest yacht imaginable.
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It’s amazing that Brude’s concept went mostly unused for 60 years. When did we start seeing enclosed lifeboats outnumber open boats? 1970’s? It’s amazing how people drag their feet on new lifesaving technology. Why wasn’t Ole Brude’s design used early on? My guess is money and the stinginess of ship owners, but the Brude boats don’t look that costly, and wooden lifeboats (used a lot through WW2) were costly to maintain, and rotted out in tropical climates.
If I recall correctly, the first inflatable raft was invented in 1847. But the concept wasn’t really used until a hundred years later, mostly for aircraft. It was only after WW2 that inflatable life rafts started to be used on ships.
The opposite is true also. Survival training often lags behind changes in technology. Think of all the mariners who are still learning how to row as part of a lifeboatmen’s course, who will never work on a ship with oared lifeboats. Mind you, I have nothing against mariners learning to row. I just don’t think rowing is a vital part of a lifeboatmen’s course.
By the way, the modern lifeboat in the article? It looks big enough to warrant its own lifeboat. 
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Joshua Slocum solo sailing around the world in the 1890’s. The man certainly knew something about being alone! Oh, and cannibals.
Beyond that, definitely agree with he Caird journey. I’ve been cold, bitterly cold, lost feeling in my feet and having trouble getting my hands to work. But I can’t for the life of me fathom the misery of that journey. Particularly near the end where it is likely that if Shackleton had succumbed to sleep he would not have woken and the record of that journey would have been quite different.
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Style is a matter of taste, so to each his own, I suppose. There are certainly others who agree with you. I find his style reminiscent of Tristian Jones, but with more cocksure patronizing and less flow. Ultimately, criticizing the kid for his lack of enthusiasm at prayer time and the like, even with the benefit of hindsight, is such a spectacular failure of form as to taint the whole book.
What gets me about the story isn’t so much the week they spent in a raft, as the month or so they spent in a 9 ft fiberglass dinghy after the raft disintegrated. With 5 people on board. In the Pacific. That must be a record of some kind.
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I always thought the journey of 17 crew from the USS Quail (AM-15) following the fall of Corregidor is worthy of a book or film, but to the best of my knowledge none were ever made. The CO and 17 volunteers took a 36ft motor launch and made a 29 day, 2000+ mile trip from the Philippines to Australia in May-June 1942, dodging unfriendly natives and Japanese patrols the whole way. A writeup is available here:
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From a Blog by Auld Rasmie:
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There is a similar story which has been forgotten by time. A man by the name of Albert Klestadt was living in the Philippines when the Japanese conquered the islands, and he eventually escaped in a small boat to Australia.
Klestadt was a German Jew. Seeing the Nazis rise to power, he and his brother emigrated to, of all places, Japan! Japan wasn’t at war with the Allies yet, and it was one of the few places that would accept Jewish immigrants.
He and his brother went into business in Japan. They also took up sailing as a recreation. But they saw Japan sliding towards world war, and decided to emigrate again, to a nice , safe place…the Philippines. (It seems they had a knack for jumping from the frying pan to the fire, but remember they were Jews, so very few countries would accept them).
Klestadt is a very good writer. He had detailed observations about his fellow Europeans in Manila, and of the Filipinos. The Japanese were ruthless. This part of the book is fascinating by itself.
He spent his time on the run, not waiting to be sent to an internment camp, always trying to procure a boat to escape in. Eventually he does. He knew several other people who also escaped in boats. After the war, he investigated their cases and found that the Japanese had caught them at sea and killed them. He was lucky to escape.
Just the sort of epic to read when you think you have it rough.
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“The Bombard story” of a doctor who drifted across the Atlantic in an inflatable boat drinking seawater and eating very little to prove his theories about survival is remarkable
“lifeboat number severn” by Frank West another .
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You can do your own small boat adventure on a much smaller scale. There is a race of small boats called the Everglades Challenge that starts in Tampa and with the checkpoints in between ends up being 300 miles with a finish in key largo. You have to drag the boat off the beach without outside help and bring whatever you used to launch with you. It keeps the boats small. There are kayaks, windsurfers. Stand up paddleboards and small sailboats. I did it 3 times in an open 14 ft sailboat and my average was 5 days. Being in an open boat exposed to the weather even for that short period sucked. You alternated from being cold at night to baking in the sun in the day and you were always wet. I built a 16ft trimaran with a pilot house and have done the race 6 times in that boat. It is not a pleasant trip but I am addicted! Starts first weekend in march in Tampa. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6tLgJX9niM
Kind of a cheesy documentary but it explains the spirit of the race.
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You might like this:
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You piqued my interest. The Sea Was Kind is in the public domain, so you can read it free at
https://archive.org/details/seawaskind010917mbp/page/n19/mode/2up
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There are some good documentaries on the race to Alaska. That race doesn’t have the beach start requirement so it has a lot of bigger boats in it.
I almost froze to death READING it, I cannot imagine doing it! Imagine the worst storm you have been in or maybe seen on Deadliest Catch, but in an open boat.
This is an incredible case study in leadership. Two ships are wrecked in the same desolate area. One crew accomplished amazing feats and the other one…not so much.
Actually the first book is an amazing study on leadership too. If I ran a school for up and coming mariners the students would have to read both books.
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Crazy Fisherman!
1896 George Harbo and Frank Samuelson row across the Atlantic, from New York to Le Havre!
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While the journey, like Shackleton’s was not all by boat certainly Albanov’s count’s as EPIC.
His book In the Land of White Death is a great read!
Valerian Ivanovich Albanov was a Russian navigator, best known for being one of two survivors of the Brusilov expedition of 1912, which killed 22.
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RE: Race to Alaska
While I admire people who participate in the Race to Alaska, the one thing I have against the race is that it is usually won by an experienced racing team, using a racing sailing boat. All the people in kayaks, rowing boats, SUPs never stand a chance. The racing sailboats, often multihulls, can just wait out the calms for days, then zoom ahead. Eventually it will just become an endeavor for well-heeled yachtsmen.
As maybe a one-heeled yachtsman, I cannot imagine “well healed” yachtsman having anything to do with the R2AK. They are busy in the Caribbean or the Med with hot and cold running cabin wenches 
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That’s unfortunate but it’s a difficult trend to combat not only in sailboat racing but in other amateur sports as well. Those who can afford the best gear have the advantage. At the top, owners like Larry Ellison pay professional crews and aren’t even on the boats themselves. According to the WSJ, he pays his AC rank & file sailors 300K.
Establishing classes in the R2AK would mitigate that to some extent but the added complexity would change the free-for-all flavor of an event originally intended for adventurous amateurs.
@yacht_sailor, I get @freighterman’s point if you substitute “well heeled yachtsmen” with “flush with cash serious amateurs” 
@Mola please disregard. Post intended for yacht sailor and freighterman1.
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I am pretty sure 95% of the yachting community thinks the R2AK is utterly nuts. There is a mini version around where I live and you get oddities like 420s racing canoes.
The Sydney Hobart race is another yacht race that’s just become the race of the wallets for line honours. Then of course there is the grand daddy of them all the America’s Cup which is presently residing in a place that it’s been before.