212man - what visual references are you using in the dark from a rig? If you are very lucky you might have enough starlight and moonlight to have the glimmer of a horizon but more often than not you won't.
I'm quite old fashioned, so I tended to use things like the Deck markings, the perimeter lights, the net - all the stuff that allowed me to judge lateral and fore/aft cuing such that I could ensure a vertical climb, with no drifting, to the rotation point (typically 15 to 30 ft depending on type). Pitch input was by 'muscle memory' followed by an immediate transition onto instruments as the deck edge was crossed, and the attitude fined tuned if necessary. The subsequent departure was predominantly on instruments on older types, or coupled to the AP once trimmed in a stable climb on modern types.
I was merely countering this comment:
the crew climb vertically on instruments before pitching down
Offshore, they do not but the climb is very short. A pure instruments departure onshore is a different thing and used to be trained in the a/c.
In the context of this accident, we also had standard calls for unusual attitudes developing, low airspeed, high rates of descent etc and would brief their importance before departure.