We joke about Darwin Award happenings, hard to say if Daddyo's fits in since it all worked OK.
Problem is, Tom, that you can sort of say that about anything. You decide when to step off the curb and cross the street. If you decide wrong, you could get run over. If you decide right, you reach the other side. So it worked out. Just about every decision involving a risk--- try crossing a street in China
)-- will work out or it won't.
And the amount of perceived risk will vary from person to person.
When we bought our GB and were very new to the boat and this kind of boating we made a decision to not go out if the winds were forecast to be 15 mph or higher. We felt that the water conditions in the bay and elsewhere and the potential docking challenges would exceed our limitations given our inexperience.
At the same time, our friend Carey and his wife, who have vastly more boating experience than we do, had no qualms about going out in winds 15 mph or stronger. I don't recall what he told me their no-go decision strength was but it was considerably higher than 15 mph.
So did the fact that our decision in those early days was to stay at the dock if the winds were 15 or higher mean their decision to go out in winds 15 or higher was wrong?
Of course not. So while I do what everyone else does and judge someone else's makes by its outcome, I also believe that my judgment has no bearing on the reality of the situation as perceived by the other person. Nor does it take into account--- because I have no way of knowing--- the other person's experience, character, and ability to deal with the reality of the situation.
So I don't go along with the comments in this thread that Daddyo did a dumb thing or the wrong thing or made a bad decision or unnecessarily put his family at risk. He made a decision based on the situation as he assessed it and it proved to be a good one.
Had he elected to go ashore and the building he and his family were sheltering in had burned to the ground or a family member was killed by flying debris or a falling tree or any one of the infinite number of bad things that can happen had happened, people would be accusing him of making a bad decision and putting his family in jeopardy and they should have stayed "someplace else."
The fact that other people left their boats and went ashore and their boats did fine is great for them but if you look at the photos people have posted here of boats sunk, piled on the shore, or "rafted" together in the parking lot of a marina it's obvious that what worked fine for some people didn't work fine for others. So who knows what would have happened to Daddyo's boat if he'd left it to its own devices? Might of done fine, might not of.
So what he did worked. Might not have been what other people on this forum would have done, but who cares? The only relevant thing here is that he made a decision, acted on it, and proved to be a right decision. There could have been other right decisions he could have made, too, but we'll never know. All that's important to him--- and if he's smart he won't give a hoot in hell about anyone else's armchair judgements-- is that he got the desired outcome from the decision that he made. He got to the other side of the street without being run over. And I think that's all that matters.
