You really started hearing the old saying of "“You never step off until you have to step up” until after the Fastnet race years ago when several of the boats were abandoned during the storm only later to find that the boats were still afloat and the crews dead because of life raft failures. It was pretty much the opinion at the time that had these people not prematurely abandoned their hard fiberglass boats in exchange for light rubber and cloth life rafts they all would have been able to survive. I can see a place for "It’s terrible advice and almost never true" when speaking of larger, seagoing, hard life boats but I'm not so sure it's the same for your standard small boat life raft under similar circumstances. I believe that I will take my chances with the rig of a modern sailboat as opposed to abandoning my small 38 foot fiberglass boat for an even smaller rubber raft until the very last minute when I'm totally convinced that the mother ship has no chance of staying afloat. The problem with the Fastnet folks was that they were sure that they were sinking as well. Take for example what was going on inside those boats. Several had been rolled. The batteries had come loose and battery acid had been spilled. Holding tanks had been broken loose. Pots, pan, dishes, books all over the place. Bedding and towels and what not floating around in the up to the waist water and the boats rolling around because of no rigs. This was going on for hours. The desire to prematurely abandon ship would have been a real force to have to deal with. I believe that with small boats it might be prudent to push abandoning ship out a long as you absolutely can because had these people been able to push through all of that they would have made it. Weather it means actually stepping up into the life raft as opposed to, kind of, stepping across, or maybe even slightly down, I hope I will never have to find out.