A comment at the end of the news piece said that they were suing for the phone company to repay the government the cost of the rescue. If that's all the suit is for, I applaud and support them in their suit. If they include the value of the lost boat, I'm more neutral on the subject. If they are also suing for pain and suffering, etc. I'll be critical of it. At this point, more information is needed before I form an opinion.

On the topic of sat phone vs. SSB, as I recall, they had an SSB, but water ingress killed it. So when they started out they had both which seems prudent to me. I've never had a sat phone, but having taken my boats to the S. Pacific and back twice now and having had the SSB fail (turned out to be a broken antenna wire behind a wall panel) during one of the returns, I think I may have a sat phone on board for the next one also.