The reader gets his honest observations and can make their own call. Herb includes his own schedule constraint which sounded too stringent for the crossing and the ongoing prep to me. I felt nervous in the first few paragraphs.

The owner obviously had an adventure in his own mind(who doesn't?), that was putting pressure on getting underway. The dynamics onboard these scheduled crossings/deliveries, are not usually this well explained. The ones we talk about are often news worthy rescues, and we don't have all this onboard background.

I think the owner and paid captain crossing/delivery is a tricky dynamic. A paid captain can love his job, but he's there on retainer-he has to work(like most of us). He(she)may have final say as captain, but that doesn't mean the owner isn't driving the adventure, all the time, right up until you turn around. The dock lines were coming off this boat, ready or not,...

Contrast that with the more democratic boat of family and or friends; that know each other and have sailed together. They too could leave before the boat was sorted out, due to some tight personal schedules, but I think it would be less likely. There is not the same single person driving force.

Then, without the paid captain-owner dynamic at work, the process onboard the democratic boat of determining that it makes sense to turn around, likely(I think) would have come sooner than the scenario Herb has chronicled. They may not have even left Belfast.

Nobody got hurt, no rescue was involved, we got the inside story, the voyage is a winner all around.