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#286917 - 10/28/17 02:35 PM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: Russ]
Russ Offline
Geezer

Registered: 06/02/06
Posts: 5357
Loc: SOCAL
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.

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#286922 - 10/28/17 06:10 PM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: Russ]
AKSAR Offline
Veteran

Registered: 08/31/11
Posts: 1233
Loc: Alaska
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.


Edited by AKSAR (10/28/17 06:20 PM)
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"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."
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#286923 - 10/28/17 07:22 PM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: AKSAR]
Russ Offline
Geezer

Registered: 06/02/06
Posts: 5357
Loc: SOCAL
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)
Quote:
...On October 26, 2017, Ashland rescued two American women who were drifting and lost at sea for almost five months (the sailors' sailboat lost engine power early in their voyage). The two Honolulu, Hawaii residents had been sending mayday signals for almost three months until a Taiwanese fishing vessel heard their signal on October 25, 2017. The Taiwanese crew contacted the U.S. Coast Guard in Guam. In a coordinated rescue mission between the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy, Ashland found the two sailors and their two dogs drifting at sea about 900 miles off the coast of Japan. Everyone was in excellent condition because, the boat owners told authorities, they provisioned on board enough food for a year, and an unlimited water supply by using salt water desalination devices.

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#286944 - 10/31/17 02:13 AM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: AKSAR]
Teslinhiker Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/14/09
Posts: 1418
Loc: Nothern Ontario
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
_________________________
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

John Lubbock

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#286949 - 10/31/17 03:45 AM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: Teslinhiker]
Russ Offline
Geezer

Registered: 06/02/06
Posts: 5357
Loc: SOCAL
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?

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#286952 - 10/31/17 11:06 AM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: Teslinhiker]
Teslinhiker Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/14/09
Posts: 1418
Loc: Nothern Ontario
Even more inconsistencies are being revealed about this bizarre story.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/lost-at-sea-women-dogs-1.4379649
_________________________
Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.

John Lubbock

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#286953 - 10/31/17 11:56 AM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: Teslinhiker]
bws48 Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 08/18/07
Posts: 831
Loc: Anne Arundel County, Maryland
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???
_________________________
"Better is the enemy of good enough."

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#286954 - 10/31/17 12:29 PM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: dougwalkabout]
bws48 Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 08/18/07
Posts: 831
Loc: Anne Arundel County, Maryland
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
_________________________
"Better is the enemy of good enough."

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#286955 - 10/31/17 01:40 PM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: bws48]
hikermor Offline
Geezer in Chief
Geezer

Registered: 08/26/06
Posts: 7705
Loc: southern Cal
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.
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Geezer in Chief

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#286956 - 10/31/17 02:20 PM Re: Rescued After 3 Months at Sea [Re: hikermor]
Russ Offline
Geezer

Registered: 06/02/06
Posts: 5357
Loc: SOCAL
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.

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