I have to argue #3. I would say always prepair for the forcast to not be as severe as the weather may have a chance to be. Many times have people put too much faith in the forcast and only dressed for beautiful weather only to be totaly caught off guard.

Going into #4 I once herd of a group of sea kayakers that went out for a "short trip" amongst some islands in South East Alaska. Yes, the word Alaska should clue you in that being unprepaird to so much as step out of your door can cause issues. The trip was to be very short, they ended up getting tipped over and thus stranded on an island for about 3 days with no survival equipment.

Thank you for posting these rules.