When something happens, people want to do something NOW and sometimes do things that are not real smart. Here are some real stories that may be similiar:

One afternoon many years ago a ~35ft sailboat sailed through a College dinghy race on Pensacola Bay with a woman screaming she had lost her crew and didn't know how to sail. Seems one person had fallen overboard and the other 2 jumped in to rescue her. We tracked back and found 3 people clinging to a throwable.

We found 2 people floating in Lake Texana. They were sailing, one fell overboard, the other jumped in to rescue them and the boat sailed away. We left them at the Ranger Station. I don't know if they ever found the boat.

I heard this one so, it may not be true. Some friends were sailing and saw a strange sight. 2 men in an inflatable paddling with their hands trying to catch a sailboat drifting away. Seems they saw something in the water, put the boat in irons, jumped into the inflatable they were towing, raced over and ran out of gas.

Carl