It is sad that these experienced fishermen didn't have a covered life raft, nor did they have emergency supplies strapped into the raft. It also seems that they did not have a means of starting a fire as part of an EDC.
Yes, some basic additional gear would have been very helpful. I don't know what gear is normally required in rafts on a vessel like this. But a bag of useful goodies in the raft would have been worth its weight in gold.
And apparently, despite being native Canadians, they didn't know how to start a fire with what they could find--the bow-drill method comes to mind.
Maybe. Most Canadians, native or not, use a Bic to start fires. Starting any fire is tough enough in a West Coast rainforest, even with modern firestarters, because everything is a sponge. I would argue that even an experienced bow-drill operator would have a mighty tough time in that environment.
They were indeed lucky to have survived.
There was an element of luck, some of it good and some of it bad. But despite some large gaps in preparation, IMHO it was skill and knowledge, not luck, that kept them alive and in decent shape. Heck, they didn't even need medical attention when they were rescued.
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