That story also tells you that there is either no air sea rescue on St Lucia (which I doubt as it is a British colony) or that no one heard the distress call.
Apparently the distress call was indeed heard and a rescue was launched. From
St. Lucia police detail rescue after boat sinking:
When authorities received the captain's distress call, they dispatched a boat immediately, but it took 30 minutes to reach their location, Leonce said.
Police also dispatched a helicopter and a small plane, and about nine private boat owners helped in the search, which was called off Sunday night and resumed early Monday, he said.
"Visibility was very poor on Sunday," he said. "The weather conditions were not the best. It was raining intermittently, with sometimes very heavy showers."
From the two articles it appears that the boat sank sometime in the late afternoon, in poor weather. As is usually the case, it took time to start the search. The search was suspended at dark and resumed the next day.
No one disputes that they would have been better off had they had gear such as a plb, flares, a strobe or flashlight, etc. However, the question in the original post was whether they made the right decision to swim for it rather than stay together where the boat sank. To repeat what I said upthread, people in the water are very hard to spot, but group of four people is much easier to spot than a group of two. Swimming for shore worked out for them in this case, but in my opinion they were very lucky they made it.
In most situations of this nature the best odds are to stay with the boat.
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