Mary, perhaps I could have made it clearer, but I was talking about hang gliders and paragliders in my earlier posts. Both of these can land in places that even your gliders would fear to tread, but pilots of both of them are occasionally forced to crash land on unsuitable terrain.
Anyway, I feel shy that I have probably led the thread astray somewhat. Ideally, we all want to save our own skin whilst not injuring anybody else either. Foot-launch aircraft are obviously very different from class A aircraft, and I just wanted to point out that ditching is actually a big decision, and perhaps provoke some further discussion of the subject.
Perhaps a good ploy for this scenario would be to fly along the water's edge and turn out to sea if, as you get closer, the beach turns out to be more crowded than it initially appeared.
Last edited by abgd; 19th Apr 2012 at 19:07.