Former Coastie's view on several issues that came up on this thread:
Charging the people who get rescued?: When I was in the Coast Guard, this idea would surface from time to time, and the Coast Guard always opposed it because we didn't want the possibility of financial liability to prevent people from reporting distress situations early enough for us to help them. A captain who doesn't call in because he's worried about his credit card limit could endanger the lives of his passengers. We'd certainly book you and bill you for a hoax distress call, but we want people who think they might be in trouble to call us right away so we can evaluate the situation, figure out the best course of action while there are still choices, and get someone on scene if necessary.
New Laws?: Good seamanship is impossible to codify because every situation requires consideration of many situation-dependent variables. There are already legal ways to address recklessness and negligence.
Abandoned vessel?: I would hope that anyone encountering an adrift, unoccupied vessel would focus attention first on the welfare of the people who had been aboard the boat and call the Coast Guard to investigate. If you took such a boat, you'd be stealing and possibly contributing to the deaths of the occupants if they were endeavoring to return to the vessel.
Hazard to navigation?: That's a stretch. It could have become a hazard to navigation, but anyone sincerely worried about it as a hazard could have made it a non-hazard simply by properly anchoring the vessel and turning on its anchor light. There are times when the Coast Guard destroys vessels as hazards to navigation (usually unseaworthy vessels whose occupants had been arrested for smuggling drugs or migrants), but the owners of a valuable boat in good condition within towing range of port would be given the opportunity to retrieve the boat or hire a commercial towing company.
Scope of anchor chain: Many recreational boaters don't understand how anchors hold and put out only a fraction of the required chain/line. When you put out only 1 or 2 times the depth of the water, you're not anchoring, you're unintentionally performing a ship handling maneuver called dredging, which is done to move your pivot point forward and tighten your turn radius.
Float plans: If nobody ashore knows when to get worried and where to start looking for you, you have made yourself the boating equivalent of a self-reliant diver. You're on your own if a casualty occurs and you lose communications.
Swimming with her gear: Not knowing whether she could catch the boat (and it seems she succeeded only because of good fortune when the anchor re-attached to the bottom), it would have been an all-or-nothing gamble to have ditched her gear.
Diving from an unattended boat: I don't get it. Scuba divers train and equip themselves to handle all sorts of events whose probabilities of occurring are several orders of magnitude less than the chance that an anchored boat will lose its hold on the bottom. Diving from an unoccupied vessel miles offshore seems contrary to the mindset we cultivate for every other aspect of our dives. It's not that hard to find a non-diver who's willing to come along and fish with a rod and reel while you go diving.
Sticking together: It's very hard for untethered swimmers to stay together in any kind of sea state above a light chop. I'd need more information before I'd be willing to criticize them for not being able to stay in touch with each other, especially after dark.
Charging the people who get rescued?: When I was in the Coast Guard, this idea would surface from time to time, and the Coast Guard always opposed it because we didn't want the possibility of financial liability to prevent people from reporting distress situations early enough for us to help them. A captain who doesn't call in because he's worried about his credit card limit could endanger the lives of his passengers. We'd certainly book you and bill you for a hoax distress call, but we want people who think they might be in trouble to call us right away so we can evaluate the situation, figure out the best course of action while there are still choices, and get someone on scene if necessary.
New Laws?: Good seamanship is impossible to codify because every situation requires consideration of many situation-dependent variables. There are already legal ways to address recklessness and negligence.
Abandoned vessel?: I would hope that anyone encountering an adrift, unoccupied vessel would focus attention first on the welfare of the people who had been aboard the boat and call the Coast Guard to investigate. If you took such a boat, you'd be stealing and possibly contributing to the deaths of the occupants if they were endeavoring to return to the vessel.
Hazard to navigation?: That's a stretch. It could have become a hazard to navigation, but anyone sincerely worried about it as a hazard could have made it a non-hazard simply by properly anchoring the vessel and turning on its anchor light. There are times when the Coast Guard destroys vessels as hazards to navigation (usually unseaworthy vessels whose occupants had been arrested for smuggling drugs or migrants), but the owners of a valuable boat in good condition within towing range of port would be given the opportunity to retrieve the boat or hire a commercial towing company.
Scope of anchor chain: Many recreational boaters don't understand how anchors hold and put out only a fraction of the required chain/line. When you put out only 1 or 2 times the depth of the water, you're not anchoring, you're unintentionally performing a ship handling maneuver called dredging, which is done to move your pivot point forward and tighten your turn radius.
Float plans: If nobody ashore knows when to get worried and where to start looking for you, you have made yourself the boating equivalent of a self-reliant diver. You're on your own if a casualty occurs and you lose communications.
Swimming with her gear: Not knowing whether she could catch the boat (and it seems she succeeded only because of good fortune when the anchor re-attached to the bottom), it would have been an all-or-nothing gamble to have ditched her gear.
Diving from an unattended boat: I don't get it. Scuba divers train and equip themselves to handle all sorts of events whose probabilities of occurring are several orders of magnitude less than the chance that an anchored boat will lose its hold on the bottom. Diving from an unoccupied vessel miles offshore seems contrary to the mindset we cultivate for every other aspect of our dives. It's not that hard to find a non-diver who's willing to come along and fish with a rod and reel while you go diving.
Sticking together: It's very hard for untethered swimmers to stay together in any kind of sea state above a light chop. I'd need more information before I'd be willing to criticize them for not being able to stay in touch with each other, especially after dark.
