In reply to Ant. If you lose one or more 4 engines on a diesel electric setup you can very quickly get into an overload situation. Automatic controls start shedding loads. One of the "preferential" trips that would go offline is the stabilisers as you don't need them to navigate the ship Do you..? Now you have no stabilisers in a ship with no propulsion and and its in 40kt beam winds and you start rolling horrifically. A quite feasible scenario is that air gets into the fuel system and there goes your other 2 gens. Now you are on emergency generators which literally give the barest minimum ie steering and navigational controls and maybe 1 anchor winch. Not much you can do but try and get the air out of the fuel system and get those Diesel Electric Generators started and get propulsion back so you can turn into the wind and waves.... but hang on you are rolling so much (because you don't have enough power to run the stabilisers) that you cant get the fuel system bled... Groundhog moment for everyone...! As a captain on commercial vessels I was taught that the best lifeboat you have is the one you are on, and not to leave it unless your life is threatened or you are in very dire trouble. El Capitano must have been very worried to ask for an evacuation. The decision would not have been made lightly considering the actual weather conditions at the time.