He wasn't supposed to go out at all... Never 3 men out at once...

Having decided in a crisis to break that commandment, not stopping to buckle on an oilskin seems a given.

Not unlike gun control; once you've decided to break the BIG kahuna, murder, why are you going to follow the small potatoes law "how you can have a gun" legally?

It's just so neat (perhaps TOO neat);
2 men outside washed or fell into the sea,
3rd rushes out to save, somehow joins them (another rogue perhaps)
voila; all MIA