Rescued After 3 Months at Sea

http://nationalpost.com/news/world/navy-rescues-honolulu-women-who-were-lost-at-sea-for-months

Remarkable. Three months at sea, finally rescued, and in good condition.

They obviously had a ton of skills and had prepared for the worst with a massive stash of food and water.

Though I'll bet that after 30 days they would have gladly exchanged their life savings for a PLB.

Many good preps, not complete though. It seems that comms were their primary downfall.

They were sort of attacked by sharks. Is this a known behavior? Using boats to train little sharks how to hunt?

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20171027%2F591e5ff6-39a3-4205-a32f-a3c4984920af

I would maintain a high index of suspicion over this one. Lots of things that don't quite add up.

First off, they are drifting around aimlessly in a sailboat, why not raise the sails? Do they even know how to sail?

The motor quit? Did they start on such a long voyage with no tools or spare parts for the engine? Were they planning to motor the whole way? Seems a bit improbable. Carrying enough fuel to motor that far in that boat seems a bit problematic.

A years worth of food for both themselves and two dogs, a water maker, and lots of flares, but no EPIRB or SSB radio?

Over at Cruisers Forum there are some highly experienced sailors. Some have made the particular voyage in question. The old salts there (who actually know something about long distance cruising) are highly skeptical on their thread.

The whole thing smells very fishy to me (pun intended).

EDIT: More questions from the video:
A Force 11 storm on the first night, that lasted for 2 nights and 3 days? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? That is one step below a hurricane. Should be easy to see if there were conditions like that on that date near Hawaii?

Didn't think they could survive another 24 hours? Really? They looked pretty healthy and well fed to me.

The boat was too big to get into Kiribati lagoon? Sounds pretty bogus to me.

Devils Triangle? Where boats go in but don't come out?

Cans don't work?

This whole story is just too weird for me.

Hi

Seems their stash wasn't as big as they thought it was :|




What is special about 30 days?

I am a certified landlubber, and absolutely defer to those who know the right questions to ask.

This is an initial report (and media do tend to follow a script, 'cause that's easier, and suckers like me always click on feel-good stories ;-). No doubt the dirt will come out in the wash.

Just a number, tossed out in casual conversation.

Only the occupants of the boat know the real number. But I'll bet there is one.

Thanks AKSAR. That cruisersforum thread has a good discussion and brings up points I didn’t consider. I was totally stumped by the fact they set off from Hawaii on their way to Tahiti and ended up southeast of Japan. There seems to be a lot of story missing.

Dogs seemed happy to be off the boat.

There may be many reasons.
When the boat is dead in the water, the sharks may start to wonder whether that´s food at some point. With ramming and test bites they try to find out whether the vessel is food and still alive enough to hurt the shark. The boat has about the right size for a whale carcass.
Some species are territorial and keep other potential predators out of their territory.
Last but not least bait fish may seek shelter under the boat. Sharks may collide with the boat when hunting for the bait fish.

The link provided by Bingley filled a lot of holes from other articles. [url=http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20171027/591e5ff6-39a3-4205-a32f-a3c4984920af]Sailboat survivors recount doomed Pacific voyage[/url] First storm battered the boat and imo they underestimated the damage to the rigging; the boat’s engine was flooded by a second storm. Multiple failures to the comms equipment and navigation was reduced to a handheld GPS. The boats owner (Appel) would like to retrieve and repair the boat [quote]...Their boat, deemed no longer seaworthy, was allowed to drift away after their rescue, although Appel says she hopes she might eventually retrieve and repair it....[/quote] —

I was thinking about this “rescue” while walking the dog this morning. Since I’ve been considering a sailboat, there are lessons in the misfortune of others.

1. Learn to deal with bad weather. There are books such as the Storm Tactics Handbook... which might be a good place to start.

2. Learn to inspect and fix your rigging at sea. From what I read, sail power may have been compromised early and if so should maybe have triggered an abort and return to Hawaii.

3. A radio install isn’t complete until it’s tested at sea. I’ve seen a number of issues with new gear failing because of an inadequate installation of perfectly good equipment. People replace a problem radio only to discover the new radio doesn’t work either. It’s a system; the antennas, connectors, cables and grounding points are part of that system. Sailing the Pacific, good HF comms should be required, a satellite phone would be nice. For emergency situations, an EPIRB or PLB should also be included.

4. Assuming they had charts, navigation was not their problem; the handheld GPS they had will determine your location to within 20 feet; in the middle of the Pacific celestial navigation with 5 mile accuracy is adequate. One sailor on the SF-HI solo TransPac used a cheap plastic training sextant as his primary nav. You really only need the GPS when you get close to a destination to back-up/correct your cel-nav. (Just stay well clear of any shoals.)

That’s a start, but ...
5. Dogs?? I like dogs too which is why I wouldn’t take them on a Trans-Pac. The space for their food now becomes space for more of my food.

This whole story reeks of bull-ony. For example, take the "Force 11" storm that went on for 3 days and 2 nights. Over on Cruiser's Forum (which I linked to earlier), someone actually checked what the conditions were at that time. See posts 102, 103, and 104 in that thread. Turns out it was great sailing weather during that entire period. Nothing even remotely resembling a Force 11 storm.

See post #92 in the above Cruisers Forum for a interview with the two. How about them sharks, who spent days studying their behavior and planning their attack? It turns out one of the two is a "business woman, actress, and adventurer".

The whole story smells like a publicity stunt.

I don’t want to judge motives, but their own words say that they didn’t have enough experience for that trip. According to the article at Sailboat survivors recount doomed Pacific voyage Appel had been sailing the Hawaiian Island’s for 10 years and yet short of the boat actually sinking, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Owning a boat and day sailing on and off for 10 years does not equate to being an experienced sailor.

I wonder if the Ashland’s crew dipped the fuel tank to see if there was any fuel remaining — maybe, but probably not. Pick up the survivors and hit the road, Ashland still had places to be after that little detour. My gut tells me that somewhere southeast of Japan there is a perfectly good 50 foot sailboat waiting to be salvaged.

wiki page for USS_Ashland (LSD-48)

AKSAR is right. Something about this story is not adding up and starting to smell like 6 day old tuna...

The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday that the two Hawaii women who were lost at sea for five months had an emergency beacon aboard their sailboat that was never activated.

U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Scott Carr told The Associated Press that their review of the incident and subsequent interviews with the survivors revealed that they had the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) aboard but never turned it on.

Lost sailors did not activate emergency beacon

That article definitely indicates their story makes no sense and doesn't match up to reality. No storm and they had an EPIRB, the story doesn’t hold water. But what was their motivation? Attention? Publicity? There is such a thing as bad publicity. Is there maybe a story-line for a bad made-for-TV-movie?

Even more inconsistencies are being revealed about this bizarre story.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lost-at-sea-women-dogs-1.4379649

I find the June radio contact reported in the article, wherein the captain reported that they were not in distress and expected to make land fall the next morning in Tahiti, to be pretty damaging to their story.

Also, reports on tv news this am claim that she said that she would have used the EPRIB only if they were in immediate danger (or words to that effect). Yet on rescue, she also said that they "would have been dead within 24 hours" if they had not been rescued. What?????? dead in 24 hours is not immediate danger???

Found another article that cites additional inconsistent actions, like not turning back, bypassing an island where they could have made repairs, and setting a destination farther away than their original.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5033909/Lost-sailors-did-not-activate-emergency-beacon.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/questi...-sea/ar-AAugiZk

Apparently they carried an EPIRB on board....I think AKSAR called this one correctly.

Yep, he sure did. I am way to trusting. But now that we know more and that they traveled much further, (Cook Islands?)

How did the Coast Guard know about the EPIRB? Have they been on the boat since USS Ashland “rescued” the “sailors”? I really think someone should salvage that boat; take some diesel fuel along ‘cause I have a feeling the fuel tanks are empty...

Funny, with her 10 years experience sailing in the Hawaiian Islands, Appel was unfamiliar with harbors on the island of Hawaii (the big island), Maui or Lanai. They also passed by Christmas Island. I wonder when videos of their ordeal start showing up on YouTube.

The funny thing is that in these cases I'm usually one who says "...the press usually gets these things wrong...let's give them the benefit of the doubt until we have more info..." or words to that effect. However, in the two interviews I watched their very own words seemed so full of improbabilities and inconsistencies that I had to wonder, like the 3 day Force 11 storm one day out of Hawaii, not being able to survive another 24 hours, and the "Devils Triangle". Then the old salts on Cruiser's Forum, many of whom have experience doing extended voyages in those waters, soon started to pick apart their story.

One story said: I find that hard to believe.

Regarding the EPIRB, those are registered, listing the owner and boat. I'm sure one of the first things the Coast Guard did when the story broke was to check their records. Whereupon they found that boat and owner did have a registered EPIRB. One of the articles someone linked up thread said the Coast Guard asked them about it and the women admitted they had one but didn't activate it.

As to motivation, who knows. A book and movie deal maybe? Help for a failing actress's career? Whatever it was, their story started to fall apart from the moment they were first interviewed on the Navy ship.

There’s another version of the tale at: Inconsistencies... I’ll wait to watch this on the SyFy Channel, no reason for paying to watch it on the big screen

Looking for a book deal I suppose.

There will likely be some unfortunate side effects from this whole incident.

Blue water sailing has traditionally been a male dominated field. But nowadays there are many fine woman sailors who can hold their own on any boat, in any waters. Unfortunately, many uninformed people will probably see these two idiots as representative of all women sailors.

Likewise, this incident will doubtless be used as ammunition by those who think that anyone (male or female) who undertakes long adventurous voyages in small boats is an irresponsible fool.

I trust that your concerns are not well founded. Any activity may have shysters and cheats of either sex, and it would not be logical to condemn any category or group simply because of a unique incident like this. it merely shows that we are all human and that we encompass individuals with flaws.

I hope so,anyway....

I am very uninformed when it comes to sailing.

I would certainly not blame all women sailors, all sailors in general, or any group.

The only folks to blame are the two liars who made up this whole story. Throw 'em overboard, come back in two weeks, and see if they have a more believable story to tell at that time.



There are fools, and then there are liars. Two different things. Some people who undertake long adventurous voyages may indeed be fools, but the majority are not. I doubt many fools would have the brain power to earn enough money to finance one of these long sailing adventures. They can't be inexpensive. So my assumption is that most people who engage in these kind of adventures are pretty dang smart and well to do. Idiots can't manage that. These ladies aren't fools. They are liars.

19 REASONS THIS “SURVIVAL” STORY SMELLS FISHY

https://unreasonablydangerousonionrings.com/2017/10/31/19-reasons-this-survival-story-smells-fishy/

Thanks for that, “Unreasonably Dangerous Onion Rings” shredded the story like an angry cat shredding toilet paper — visual aid is in the link. Really, it’s a good and thorough analysis of the 5 month ordeal — but long, now I’m running late

Enjoyable read, although at least a few of his assumptions my be off. For example, he makes a big deal about the Survivor 06, which I agree doesn't add up. Designed for small life raft use, it has limited output as noted. But it is as likely or more likely to have either been a larger Survivor 35, a more common back-up for a boat, or manual operation of the boat's electrically powered desalintor.

Also, while i agree that a well found boat could be launched in a week on a similar voyage, fact is most such voyages are years in the making, so i think that is way off.

Having said all that, to more information that comes out, more I have to agree with the assessment that this is a BS survival story.

It is a common misconception that all blue water sailors are well to do. While this kind of voyaging isn't cheap, it can be done for much than one might think. One could buy a capable 40-50 ft world cruiser, used but in decent shape, for under $200K. Sometimes much less if one is willing and able to put time and money into a refit. One sees a fair number of folks who retire and sell their paid off house, put part of the proceeds into a good used boat, and head out on a world cruise.

Before embarking on their big adventure, most of these folks have developed their sailing skills over the years by weekend and vacation sailing in smaller boats in coastal areas. Over the years they've also developed the knowledge and skills to cope with at sea emergencies. They've also learned to make at sea repairs when something breaks, as inevitably it will. And they have the good sense to activate the EPIRB on those rare occasions when things have gotten beyond their ability to deal with.

$200K? Why, even my butler makes more than that! These cruisers are truly priced for the masses. I must be more skeptical of my fellow yacht club members from now on. One can never be too careful! I shudder to imagine hoi polloi traversing the seven seas with my peers! How many monocles will they need?

Exactly my point Bing. If you could just bring yourself to forego the butler, you could put the money you would have paid him into a good boat and sail the seven seas!

Seriously, you did note that I said they retire, sell the house, and buy a boat, did you not? By the way, have you priced a big RV lately? I see lots of old geezers driving those big "road whales" around the country. We see lots of them here in AK every summer, who drive up the Alcan. A good boat doesn't go for that much more than one of those things. And wind is significantly cheaper than gasoline (especially gas on the Alcan).

How a real sailor handles problems at sea

In July, Australian Lisa Blair became the first woman to circumnavigate Antarctica, solo. Her original intent was to do it in one continuous push, and break the speed record for this voyage.

However, in 40 knot winds and 7-9 meter seas, her boat was dismasted. She notified authorities with a "Pan Pan" radio call. A Pan Pan means I have serious problems, but not immediately life threatened. A sort of "stand by, I may need help but not just yet" message.

She ultimately took on extra fuel from another ship, jury rigged a new mast, and motor sailed to Cape Town and repaired the boat. She then returned to the point where she had been dismasted, and completed the rest of her circumnavigation of Antarctica. It is instructive, and inspiring to read her blog posts about planning the jury rig, and building the jury rig.

Even for non-sailors, I think it is instructive to see what a determined, skilled person can do to turn a survival situation into a successful venture.

On planning: On building the jury rig:

Good share, AKSAR. Very interesting stuff.