: just like a sailboat righting - stand/kneel on one sponson (it'll sink easy -
: only looks to provide abt 25# floatation or less) and pull the yak over
: towards you.

: the primary primary primary thing to keep in mind - that is especially
: disturbing in this case - is that every second of water immersion counted.
: They were minutes away in either direction from 4 deaths to 4 saved (one
: in variance)

: with the use of sponsons therefore, you do not need to right the craft, just
: crawl on board the upturned hull and your survival time increases an order
: of magnitude. I recall reading that heat loss is 30x more when you are
: immersed. With the wind howling, but paddling jacket and lying down
: providing some evaporative protection to groin and chest, maybe it is only
: 5x - but it logically is way more than total 95% immersion in the deadly
: heatsink.

: the tragic sponson analogy in this case was that they DID raft up to a
: similar condition. If they had stayed rafted, there is a high likelihood
: all would have survived (one was exposed on the raft as if on an
: overturned or lets say even a righted, swamped, sponsoned yak) as help was
: to be on the way from the 3 reaching the nearby island.

Ok, it's obvious that I've not been sailing enough lately . Used to roll a Hobie all the time, shoulda thought about that myself.

Bill H.