Man survives 12 days at sea

Man Survived 12 Days Stranded at Sea by Eating Fish, Rigging Radio

It is an interesting story. There are a few loose ends that aren't clear. Sailnet.com has a discussion with some quotes from various news sources. See page 4 in the sailnet thread.

The USCG didn't find him in the original very extensive search. One of the sailnet links says he gave GPS coordinates in his first mayday, but the GPS was wrong. I doubt the GPS would be that far off. I suspect it was either operator error and he misread his GPS, or else the coordinates got badly garbled over the radio. When sending a distress message, always get a read back of coordinates if at all possible!

The other big question is why he just didn't sail back after the storm was over? In the photos of the rescue the mast on the boat seems to be intact. As I write this, the sailnet thread has some possible answers from people with experience in those waters.

I thought that most ocean going (or at least ocean capable) vessels carried an EPRIB. I wonder if he had one?

From: http://www.boatsafe.com/nauticalknowhow/cgepirb.htm

While carrying an EPIRB would be wise, I don't think there was any legal requirement to carry one in this case. From Boat Safe:

This guy was fishing from a 25 foot boat. Commercial fishermen tend to be a very cantankerous and independent bunch, and have often bitterly resisted proposed mandatory safety requirements.