>"I firmly believe that the time window available for their rescue is longer than what most people think"

This assumes a level of rational, clear-headed thinking in the face of an unanticipated lethal situation. I am not convinced that most people would arrive at that state of reasoning. Especially because, as time goes by without rescue, a somewhat reasonable line of thinking will increasingly become:

"The more time they have, the more likely search & rescue is to find the vessel. I can maximize that time by minimizing the # of people using up limited resources. Let me calculate the approximate speed at which a wireless Logitech game controller must be swung in order to induce a lethal head injury to the other resource consumers..."