S/V Nina Time and Tide.

We know that the Nina was Dancing With A Gale and finding her dance partner not particularly to her liking. I would not want to characterize the Nina's contacts with the volunteer meteorologist as acts of desperation but it does bespeak a certain urgency of purpose. Clearly the electronics were not working too well since the final text was never sent. If at 6:00pm the Nina were still afloat her electronics may have deteriorated even more. It seems spray would be the first thought at to cause though I do imagine there could well be other reasons for signal strength to be so close to background noise that the message would not be sent.

Shipping lanes and known AIS signals have never been plotted, this seems strange. Later storms have not been plotted for the correct area. A number of events could have taken place that would have allowed little time for deployment of the EPIRP but one wonders: these were experienced blue water sailors, they had life lines, life vests, knives.

Experienced blue water sailors, with two inexperienced deckhands aboard, would still know to go over emergency procedures and would have focused their attention on freeing the EPIRB from its bracket and turning it on. There would have been lifelines tied to all aboard though the wise sailor always has a knife to cut his lifeline if he really and truly needs to. Loss of the garboards, the strakes closest to the keel, has been suggested though no particular reason has ever been given. This catastrophic event would have capsized the Nina, possibly flooding it first. Even at nighttime there would have been time for the EPIRB before people started severing their life lines and hoping to get to a life raft.

How securely are life rafts stowed? No use losing it just before you need it but usually they do have quick release mechanisms of some sort.

French satellite data might be more useful than commercial satellite data, particularly since France and New Zealand have rather strained relations. RCCNZ had a poor record with a search for an eleven meter steel hulled sloop yet this would be an excellent radar and thermal signature for search missions.

We all remember the Norwegian sailboat that made it from Bermuda to Ireland without ever being spotted despite various Coast Guard and satellite searches. They never turned on their radio so as to save the battery strength and altered course slightly due to initial storm damage in Bermuda waters. It was a small boat in a big ocean. The Nina, on the other hand, has an EPIRB and is well over due by now, so there is little real expectation that she is still afloat even if capsized.