quite a few have tried this. i think the main issue was how to actually go about implementing it. someone made some lifeboat units and i made people float up instead of the boxes when a ship goes down.
the best thing so far is racerboy's explosion with crew (part of sh4 fx for sh3). it makes people fly off of the ship as it explodes and then stay in the water for some time.
as far as i know no-one has made fully fledged sh4 style lifeboats
heres my survivors
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...ight=survivors
do a search for racerboys work its quite popular
cheers
tfm