How odd. I don't doubt your source, but I was shipwrecked off the coast of Florida in the mid-1970s with 40-some actors who were appearing in The Student Prince at the theater where I worked. We were on our way to the Bahamas during our 2-day break between performance weeks.
Nobody panicked, nobody was hysterical, even though the captain and crew abandoned us immediately, taking the only life boat with them. Some people went below to wake up people in sleeping cabins that were filling with water. (It was an 80' yacht.) One of the stars (Allan Jones, Jack Jones' father) and I counted life jackets and discovered we only had half what we needed; we began polling people and gave life jackets to those (many) who couldn't swim.
Everyone gathered in the open area at the stern as the ship continued to sink. At the very last moment, a garbage scow came by and the actors quietly lined up and waited their turn to be tossed to the other boat. I was last off and jumped to safety just as our yacht broke in half and the bow headed for the bottom. (We ended up with one pulled hamstring, but not a single passenger got wet.)
Maybe it was because they were members of a theatrical cast and were used to working together, but I am still amazed at how calm everyone was even when it seemed we would all end up in the water. I'm sure it helped that the sinking occurred after dawn; things might have been very different in the dark. (Personally, I had grown up in Florida and naively assumed I could swim to shore. Ha! The folly of youth.)