One thing I doubt many of us have ever given much thought to, the logistics of running aground with a canting keel, but with the boat spun around so that the sails were backwinded... (grin)

Sounds to me like he felt they might have had a shot getting off after the initial hit, had it been a boat with a conventional keel...

That night must have been pretty terrifying, seems like they were exposed to much greater risk than I initially thought. With the keel bulb gone, going completely inverted was a real possibility...

And the abandonment to the rafts certainly was no sure thing - a very dicey operation which was handled in exemplary fashion...

As someone said, they made a very big mistake to put them on that reef in the first place... But after that, they did EVERYTHING right...

http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?nid=129981