How do you spot an upside-down cat if the boat's white and the wave tops are white?

It's easier than spotting a capsized ballasted monohull, for sure (finding one of those often requires deepwater SONAR). But after hearing about the textbook rescue of a PDQ 32 that flipped near Fort Bragg, California a few days ago, one comment in particular caught my eye:

I don't normally follow the entertainment industry, but this thing is spreading like wildfire across the Net and I think it's worthy of mention. The half-hour pilot of Pioneer One was released on Bittorrent less than five days ago, and has already made Slashdot and racked up close to 70,000 HD and 150,000 Xvid downloads so far.

You see them at just about every boat show. Sometimes it's a six-metre fishing boat, sometimes it's a luxury cruiser with a six-figure price tag. But there are always a few boats with something terrifying lurking under a hidden access hatch in the stern: a "bilge pump" that would barely suffice for aquarium duty in my wife's Red Oscar tank. Sure, it'll get rid of rain water and the occasional bit of spray that seeps down there, but that's not what a bilge pump is for. Its main function is to keep you afloat if everything goes to pot, and frankly, most pumps just aren't up to the job.