Women, 2 dogs found after 5 months drifting in Pacific

[gitana1]

The Coast Guard is saying, "as far as we know, the EPIRB on their sailboat was working properly. I can't speculate as to why they wouldn't have activated it."

CNN tried to contact the hotel where the women are staying in Okinawa, but were told that the hotel's confidentiality rules don't allow them to put any calls through to them or leave a message.

CNN has attempted to contact the women via email but have so far not received a response. The Associated Press first reported that questions were being asked about certain aspects of their account.

The two women say they set out from Hawaii on May 3, and the transcript of their interview with the Navy quotes Appel as saying that "on the first night" they encountered a "force 11 storm," which they battled for the following two nights and three days. However, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Honolulu told CNN there were "no organized storm systems near the Hawaiian Islands on the dates of May 3, 2017 or the few days afterward."

The two women claimed they were close to being rescued October 1 when they made contact with officials on Wake Island, a tiny US territory in the middle of the Pacific, after they came within two miles of the shore. "We actually managed to get a hold of someone. We let them know that we'd been drifting for five months and we needed assistance," Appel said. "And they responded. They said, if we could get to the entrance to the harbor, that they would help us. "But we were on the north side of the island, and the entrance to the harbor is on the south side of the island, and the swell and the wind were pushing (us) west."
CNN has attempted to contact authorities on the island but has not received a response.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/asia/pacific-sailors-jennifer-appel-tasha-fuiava-questions/index.html

These women are nuts. How did they think anyone would buy their kooky story? Yiu'd have to be totally crazy to think anyone would believe such nonsense. WTH?

 

[TeaTime]

I do not believe any part of their story. The had VHF, satellite phones and the EPIRB. They used none of them. Second, there was no storm and if there was a storm as described by them, that boat would have laid on it's side and the mast and outriggers would have broken off. They were going for a month long cruise but took a year's worth of food? The Coast Guard made contact and they said they were no in distress in June - a month into the trip after they said they lost power in the engine, their mast was damaged, their water purification system broken.

They could have used the dingy to go ashore to one of the islands they bypassed but didn't.

They are full of baloney.

Oh, and sharks won't bite through the hull of that boat - that is a movie plot - not real life.

They are crazy.

 

[LietKynes]

I still think they should pay any expenses incurred.

 

[DakotaMayi]

So they met seven days before the trip and somehow- on the spur of the moment- pack said boat with a YEAR'S worth of food and water for an 18-day trip?

Whiskey.
Tango.
Foxtrot!

Pardon me while I unplug my hinky-meter for repairs....

:floorlaugh:

 

[grammieto5]

I still think they should pay any expenses incurred.

And apologise to the Taiwanese fishermen who stayed with them

 

[Hatfield]

more inconsistencies:

Appel’s mother said that she called the Coast Guard to report her daughter missing a week and a half after they departed for what they believed would be an 18-day trip to Tahiti. However, the Coast Guard never got a call from the elder Appel. They received a call from a “family friend” they identified as a male on May 19, still several days before the women expected to arrive.

The women said they filed a float plan listing their course and other details with some friends and relatives. However, in an interview with the Coast Guard, the women said they had filed no float plan.

They also defended their claims that their boat would not fit into harbors on some Hawaiian islands, places where much larger vessels come and go regularly.

Their description of 20- to 30-foot tiger sharks ramming their boat in a coordinated attack for more than six hours could simply be misperception, but scientists who study sharks say that behavior has never been recorded and that tiger sharks grow to only about 17 feet in length.

Their account of receiving a tow from a Taiwanese fishing vessel changed as well. They originally said the crew was kind, but later said they were worried for their safety and thought that the crew might be making an attempt to harm them. They added that the fishing boat had backed into their sailboat, causing significant damage. The captain of the fishing vessel, the Fong Chun No. 66, who identified himself as Mr. Chen in a satellite phone call from the AP, said his boat received a mayday radio call but did not understand it. They then saw someone waving a white object on a boat about a nautical mile away. When they approached, the women asked to use the satellite phone on the fishing vessel and for a tow to Midway Island. The larger vessel towed the smaller sailboat overnight. In the morning, the women wanted to stop the towing and called for a naval vessel. “We offered to get them on board the fishing boat and asked whether they needed water or food, but they refused,” the captain said. The fishermen left after the arrival of the U.S.S. Ashland.

http://www.theledger.com/news/20171031/women-rescued-by-navy-defend-their-account-of-ordeal-at-sea

So they wanted to pick and choose who rescued them?

This story is sounding more and more unbelievable the more you dig into it.

I've never heard of someone on a boat in distress and is worried about damaging ports so they stay out in the dangerous ocean instead.

Alrighty then.

Sure sounds like the boy who cried wolf to me. They had better not go sailing again because next time people may not treat them seriously.

 

[bluesneakers]

Questions mounting for shark-tale sailors Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava

Linus Wilson, a professor at the University of Louisiana who has written several books about sailing, said: “Several of Ms Appel’s statements about her voyage do not check out and don’t ring true to many experienced sailors.” He added: “It would be a shame if someone used a very expensive US navy rescue as a publicity stunt.”

 

[Morag]

I knew when I saw how good their hair and skin looked that they had not been lost at sea for months.

 

[HMSHood]

I am not sure for 5 months. Up to a month at the absolute most.

 

[PaulR]

I am not sure for 5 months. Up to a month at the absolute most.

Are we thinking something like Donald Crowhurst who was supposed to make a solo round-the-world trip without stopping, but instead laid over in South America for a while?

 

[JerseyGirl]

Are we thinking something like Donald Crowhurst who was supposed to make a solo round-the-world trip without stopping, but instead laid over in South America for a while?

Funny you mention that, I read an article yesterday that also brought up Donald Crowhurst's name:

The Strange Case Of The Sea Nymph - Something’s fishy with the story the two women sailors have been telling.

http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/11/the-strange-case-of-the-sea-nymph/

 

[Blondie in Spokane]

Women who were lost at sea for five months say they left it to the 'man upstairs' to save them but ADMIT telling the coast guard they were OK within days of setting sail as skeptics continue to pour cold water on their story

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...avy-courted-media-not-them.html#ixzz4xr7iJ47H

 

[DakotaMayi]

Women who were lost at sea for five months say they left it to the 'man upstairs' to save them but ADMIT telling the coast guard they were OK within days of setting sail as skeptics continue to pour cold water on their story

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...avy-courted-media-not-them.html#ixzz4xr7iJ47H

It's all falling apart from them. Backtracking.

 

[JerseyGirl]

They both were on The Today Show:

Appel said the storm advisory authorities issued at the time “was anticipated to be smaller than some of the down drafts that we saw,” she said. “If you were there, you would say the same thing I did. It really felt a lot bigger.”

The Coast Guard has said they made contact in June with sailors on a boat named the Sea Nymph who informed them of plans to reach Tahiti the next day. Appel disputed details of that account after pulling out a hand-held GPS system. "This is one of the GPS's that we had on our Sea Nymph and it shows that we were nowhere near Tahiti," she said.

Appel did acknowledge talking to the Coast Guard, but only on "the third day after we came through the storm." The next time they spoke with the Coast Guard was following their rescue on Oct. 27.

The women also defended their claims of their boat being attacked by sharks. Although scientists have argued that sharks do not normally behave the way the women described, the ladies stuck to their story. "We were too ignorant to realize what was going on, and the sharks had been telling us, 'You're in our living room and you’re not leaving fast enough,'" Appel said. "And we didn’t realize that was what we were being told until it was too late." Appel also defended the women's decision against using their distress beacon during the shark attack, saying they reasoned it would take "four hours to a day" before the Coast Guard could have flown to the area.

story:
https://www.today.com/news/two-women-rescued-navy-defend-their-story-being-lost-sea-t118536

video:
https://www.today.com/video/2-women...-questions-about-5-month-ordeal-1091142211859

 

[DakotaMayi]

They both were on The Today Show:

Appel said the storm advisory authorities issued at the time “was anticipated to be smaller than some of the down drafts that we saw,” she said. “If you were there, you would say the same thing I did. It really felt a lot bigger.”

The Coast Guard has said they made contact in June with sailors on a boat named the Sea Nymph who informed them of plans to reach Tahiti the next day. Appel disputed details of that account after pulling out a hand-held GPS system. "This is one of the GPS's that we had on our Sea Nymph and it shows that we were nowhere near Tahiti," she said.

Appel did acknowledge talking to the Coast Guard, but only on "the third day after we came through the storm." The next time they spoke with the Coast Guard was following their rescue on Oct. 27.

The women also defended their claims of their boat being attacked by sharks. Although scientists have argued that sharks do not normally behave the way the women described, the ladies stuck to their story. "We were too ignorant to realize what was going on, and the sharks had been telling us, 'You're in our living room and you’re not leaving fast enough,'" Appel said. "And we didn’t realize that was what we were being told until it was too late." Appel also defended the women's decision against using their distress beacon during the shark attack, saying they reasoned it would take "four hours to a day" before the Coast Guard could have flown to the area.

story:
https://www.today.com/news/two-women-rescued-navy-defend-their-story-being-lost-sea-t118536

video:
https://www.today.com/video/2-women...-questions-about-5-month-ordeal-1091142211859

BBM. So they decided to not use it and stay out there longer than 4 hours to a day? :facepalm: Ok ...

 

[PaulR]

BBM. So they decided to not use it and stay out there longer than 4 hours to a day? :facepalm: Ok ...

They had to make up an excuse and it's not even a very good one.

The article comparing this to Crowhurst speculates that they were doing something illegal.

 

[Vedder]

It's all falling apart from them. Backtracking.

And yet they go on the Today Show with their tale. You'd think with experts disputing their story, they wouldn't open themselves up for more backlash. The younger one is saying she slept solid through the alleged major storm.

 

[mister happy]

And yet they go on the Today Show with their tale. You'd think with experts disputing their story, they wouldn't open themselves up for more backlash. The younger one is saying she slept solid through the alleged major storm.

Yes, I cracked up when Tasha said she slept soundly with the dogs during that ferocious 3 day storm. And Jennifer told Tasha that if a mistake were to be made during the storm, they were going to die.. but Tasha said, "Oh I trust you. Go ahead and have fun!"

Cockamamie your stories much, ladies?

 

[DakotaMayi]

Yes, I cracked up when Tasha said she slept soundly with the dogs during that ferocious 3 day storm. And Jennifer told Tasha that if a mistake were to be made during the storm, they were going to die.. but Tasha said, "Oh I trust you. Go ahead and have fun!"

Cockamamie your stories much, ladies?

My god, it gets worse! I think these two best just shut up and save themselves. The hole they dug is getting bigger.

 

[JerseyGirl]

In a bizarre turn to the interview, Appel pulled out a GPS device she said they used on their journey. “Garmin makes a great product,” she said, smiling. She also eagerly interrupted Lauer when he mentioned they used a water purifier on their trip, interjecting with the name of the brand – Katadyn.

Ted Gartner, the Director of Corporate Communications at Garmin International, told TIME: “Garmin only found out about their Today show interview after it aired. To my knowledge, we have not had any contact with either woman, nor have we compensated either of them in any way.”

Katadyn could not be immediately reached for comment.

http://time.com/5015057/women-lost-at-sea-tough-questions/