Not only all that but even if you were to use his idea of bringing the people back aboard and towing the boat simply trying to transfer persons onto the ship in those seas was rather dangerous. As captain you’d be willingly subjecting your crew to the real possibility of serious injury or death, just in getting them back aboard assuming a safe launch, in order to possibly save one person.
Correct.
And, at the risk of offending tender sensibilities about the sanctity of life and other related nonsense, that equation doesn’t pencil out in calculating the risk-reward ratio.
Under the conditions as I understand them to have been, it would be a bad-or-worse bet to make.
I can say unequivocally that I would be highly unlikely to ever try it unless I felt that the stakes were worth the risks and that the risks, primarily to the rescuers, were lower than that. I also won’t listen to any of my crew champing at the bit to do it, either. People can easily get rescue-fever and be in over their heads before they realize it. I do a cold and unforgiving calculus by design, out of respect and my sense of responsibility to my crew.
Never say never, but you have to be pretty ruthless about the risk-taking if you don’t want to lose people.
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Here is an IMO publication that everyone should have onboard and be familiar with:
A Pocket Guide to Recovery Techniques
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