The Salty Dawg Incident of 2013 // Andy's Essay

#Bonus. This one is a bit more serious than last week, and looks at some of the 'rules' of ocean sailing from the perspective of two events from last fall - the Caribbean 1500 rally, and the Salty Dawgs. You'll recall that six Salty Dawg boats issued distress calls last year, two of which were later rescued by the Coast Guard. The incident made national news, and was a hot button issue among the offshore sailing community. I wrote down my own thoughts immediately afterwards, but didn't publish them until now, after lots of time to think it over and make a fair assessment of what happened. There's a lot of opinions in here, so buckle up! What did you think about the incident and what lessons did you take from it?