What an intense life-and-death story, @rayt2. I was really wondering why the skipper prevented the sailors from going ashore looking for fresh water!
I looked up ways to survive dehydration at sea. It's really interesting. I hadn't known that keeping clothes wet would allow your body to absorb moisture, for example. Things many of us never have to think about it, but in a world where fresh water is increasingly scarce, perhaps we all will.