I didn't follow the event as it happened and had not heard much about it. I flipped the channel over and watched a few minutes of it after you posted. They were 100 yards from shore according to what I saw. Jump off boat, swim to shore. Any further and I'd go with jump off boat, use clothes as flotation device as taught to me in boot camp (Navy), float to shore.
Like I said, I only watched a few minutes of it. What were the extenuating circumstances that made it much harder than that? Mind you the water would have been cold, but it's only 100 yards or so.
The hardest part, I think, would be the mental aspect. From the video clips I saw, the leap looked like about 30 feet down into darkness and cold water, during chaos and people screaming. Even when the ship deck sunk closer to the water, there still was the mental challenge of knowing you'd be completely on your own. Further, I imagine almost everybody there had a companion, quite possibly a child. My companions would need me, and they would not have taken that leap.
Anyway, would you need clothes for flotation when you have the life vest? That's not a rhetorical question. I actually don't know. In the videos, everybody had on a life vest.
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