Fox3 and Gipsy Queen: my point about sending a 'no nonsense MAYDAY' was that the early reports of this incident (here and on YBW) speak of the crew being uncertain of the source of the substantial ingress, in contact with the charter base by satphone, having the situation "stabilised", and diverting several hunderd miles to the Azores. These reports make no mention of a MAYDAY until contact was lost and the PLBs activated
My point is that, c600nm from land, in rapidly detereriorating weather and with substantial unstemmed water ingress from an unidentified source - THAT was the time for the MAYDAY. Yet the only reference is to a satphone converstaion with the charter base followed by loss of contact and activation of PLBs
Of course such a timely MAYDAY may have been sent, and it's just not clear from the reports that this was the case - in which case my thoughts should be disregarded as not relevant.
Re the right time for a MAYDAY, I am reminded of the addage about 'the right time to reef' being 'the first time you think about it'