Lost at sea for months?

[Steve]

Looks like mainsail is on the boom and the jib rolled around the stay.
Crazy!

[Fletcher500]

Maybe they have us all fooled and were top notch navigators who were using a Sextant and the Tables to shoot the sky for their daily fix. Hmm, probably not.


In any event, facts matter, so it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

[Edelweiss]

[QUOTE=Benthic2;

For less than a hundred bucks you will NEVER BE LOST.....

If I was venturing 3000 miles into the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I'd have multiple redundant GPS devices.

Now that I think about this a little more......if they didn't have a GPS, they must have just been using a compass and a chart. If you were off by just 1 degree over a distance that great, you would miss your target by 50 miles !![/QUOTE]

Kind of a modern day "Wrong Way" Corrigan then? In 1938, Flying non stop from New York to California, Corrigan landed his plane in Dublin, Ireland and upon landing exclaimed, "Where am I?"

Tahiti is 2500 miles South of Hawaii and Japan about 3500 miles NorthWest. Would be a comparable navigation error I guess. Maybe they read his book? lol

[BandB]

I am always skeptical of stories like this, but one out of ten is probably true so who knows. As to us ever knowing, we won't. Once they write their book even more will believe it and the tales will grow. What does bother me is when sailors start labeling them heroes. Even if the story is exactly as told, going out completely unprepared, depending on a rescue or luck, is a lot closer to stupidity than heroism.

There is too much encouragement of novices to go for your dream, buy a small boat and head across the ocean and people use the fact that some make it to say it's fine to do. Also, saying it's their lives and concerns no one else is true only if they have no friends, no family, and no one spends time searching for them. I didn't know personally, but had a friend who did know someone whose kid went out and didn't return. The parents' lives were ripped completely apart. Then when the search was called off, they were ready to spend everything they had on a private search. Many parents cannot accept that their child died without a body. Cases like this also lead them to believe their kids are out there still somewhere.

If the story is true, I'm glad they were saved.

[Northern Spy]

I'm guessing that they were just a couple of incompetent Bozos and really did think they needed rescuing. Occam's razor and all that...

No harm, no foul. Glad they are alive.

[OldDan1943]

They sure did look healthy when picked up. Must be all that oatmeal they were eating. Suuuuuure

[Tom.B]

Here is an interesting video. It doesn't help their case at all, but they do say they broke the spreader (even though it looks ok in the picture).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd2hR3AKhQY&t=2s

[HeadMistress]

Kind of a modern day "Wrong Way" Corrigan then? In 1938, Flying non stop from New York to California, Corrigan landed his plane in Dublin, Ireland and upon landing exclaimed, "Where am I?"

And it's just possible that, like Corrigan, they also accomplished what they set out to do. Did anyone else notice how clean and perfectly styled their hair is in the photos? They were definitely ready for their close-ups!

[ksanders]

I for one do not doubt their story at all.

Yes, there are unanswered questions, but I can envision that if they had a hand operated watermaker like the Katadyne units that are popular with sailboaters then they could survive indefinatley as long as they had food.

Speaking of food, when going on a long journey it seems pretyy normal that they would stock up on dry goods. Like pasta, oatmeal, spam, etc...

Then there comes the question of how did they have a radio to call for help that long. I’m guessing if you lok at the boat you’ll find a solar panel or two. That might even power a small katadyne 12V watermaker, another model really popular with sail boat types.

Their boat looks like sail boats I see come into port from ocean crossings all the time, a bit rough.

As far as their appearance. They had their hair up in pony tails. We have no clue how they smelled, but bathing isn’t all that hard. The Caucasian gal was well tanned, like someone who spends allot of time outside. The interview was clearly after they had a chance to shower up and put on clean clothes, so I have no problems there.

I don’t doubt their story one bit. It is probably easily checked out, as to their departure from Hawaii. If they didn’t do as they said, where did they go? Remember Hawaii (their departure point) is a really long ways from anywhere. Y’all think they hung out in the Marshall Islands for a Few months? Maybe they anchor’s off of Midway Island? Comeon guys, look at a map. There isn’t squat between Hawaii and where they were found except a spattering of islands, mostly uninhabited since WW2

I agree they are not heros though. They failed to complete their mission. They were rescued at sea. Their boat is still at sea. No not heros, yes incredibly lucky.

[CPseudonym]

What are the currents like west of Hawaii? A Lithuanian dude named Reymus has become pretty infamous along the west coast the last several years buying pos Craigslist slag heaps and drifting between PNW, Hawaii, SF Bay and American Samoa. Guy can't sail or even steer a boat for that matter to save his ass but he's been rescued and towed into port by a Good Samaritan every time he drifts near a port.

[Sugardog]

No excuse, I broke a spreader on the east coast in a storm and did very well thank you. BS.

[danderer]

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

[Edelweiss]

Originally Posted by HeadMistress

Kind of a modern day "Wrong Way" Corrigan then? In 1938, Flying non stop from New York to California, Corrigan landed his plane in Dublin, Ireland and upon landing exclaimed, "Where am I?"

And it's just possible that, like Corrigan, they also accomplished what they set out to do. Did anyone else notice how clean and perfectly styled their hair is in the photos? They were definitely ready for their close-ups!

Exactly, Corrigan had asked for permission for the trans Atlantic flight and been denied (because his airplane was a POC!), but did it anyway under the pretext of flying back to California.

But I did like their story of the shark attacks. My boat was attacked by an Orca whale while we were salmon fishing off the south end of San Juan Island once. He spent the better part of 10 minutes scratching his back on the keel of my boat. With the engines off, it was really unnerving for my passengers, you could clearly hear and feel it. Didn't realize the damage he had done until my diver replaced the zinc's many months later and reported, "Hey you got a big patch of barnacles growing on your keel!" Somewhere there is a killer whale with a blue stripe of ablative paint down his back.

The more they talked in the news conference, the more they hurt their case.

[Edelweiss]

Oops, and suddenly their story begins to come apart


"When asked if the two had the radio beacon aboard, the women told the AP on Friday they had a number of other communications devices, but they didn’t mention the EPIRB."

"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."

"Carr also said the Coast Guard made radio contact with a vessel that identified itself as the Sea Nymph in June near "Tahiti", and the captain said they were not in distress and expected to make land the next morning. That was after the women reportedly lost their engines and sustained damage to their rigging and mast."

Lost sailors’ story’s list of inconsistencies cast doubt on tale of survival | Fox News

[High Wire]

I think they didn't have a clue about anything related to boating. Buy a cheap boat, stock it with food, sail away. What could go wrong with that plan?
How do we know they started out with only 2 dogs?

[CaptTom]

The list is actually a bit longer, if you go over to the cruisersforum site someone is keeping track.

- There was no record of any storm even close to the one they describe for their first night out. Or the whole month. Or the month after.

- The claim that Kiribati Harbors are too small isn't sitting well with folks who have been there.

- The claim of a 10-knot foul current off the Cook islands doesn't come close to reality anywhere in the S Pacific.

There's a lot of debate about their claimed course. Many of the places they reference and their supposed timeline don't fit with some other details of their story. The CG released a report of an earlier radio contact with them which casts even more doubt.

Even the length of the boat and the amount of "building" the one partner did to it don't add up.

Edit: I forgot about their initial claim of making daily distress calls and using flares for weeks on end. CG now says they had a working EPIRB all along. Their answer now? They were never in real distress so they didn't want to use it. Hmmm. Flares and VHF distress calls were OK but an EPIRB wasn't?

[Benthic2]

In one of the interviews the blond woman says that she was so releived to see the Navy because she didn't think they'd survive another day...... I hope the USCG sites them for something, or that the Navy sends them a bill for the rescue.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Benthic2

In one of the interviews the blond woman says that she was so releived to see the Navy because she didn't think they'd survive another day...... I hope the USCG sites them for something, or that the Navy sends them a bill for the rescue.

I doubt they'll get cited for anything. There's one potential thing they could be cited for once they fill out the accident report and that is filing a false police/Coast Guard report.

Years ago, there was a local Miami politician taken down by such. Clearly a political move as he reported his car stolen, which it legitimately was. The false report was saying it was taken from his home when it was taken from him at a crack house. I just read about the situation as I think it happened in the 90's, but he was charged and refused to testify as he was then in a catch 22. If he told the truth he'd be guilty of the false report. If he stuck with his story, they had already said they'd charge him with perjury. Instead he took contempt of court and eventually ran from the country, all over lying about where the car was when stolen.

Filing false reports with law enforcement is sometimes just allowed to pass but other times taken very seriously.

[OldDan1943]

Originally Posted by BandB

I doubt they'll get cited for anything. There's one potential thing they could be cited for once they fill out the accident report and that is filing a false police/Coast Guard report.

Years ago, there was a local Miami politician taken down by such. Clearly a political move as he reported his car stolen, which it legitimately was. The false report was saying it was taken from his home when it was taken from him at a crack house. I just read about the situation as I think it happened in the 90's, but he was charged and refused to testify as he was then in a catch 22. If he told the truth he'd be guilty of the false report. If he stuck with his story, they had already said they'd charge him with perjury. Instead he took contempt of court and eventually ran from the country, all over lying about where the car was when stolen.

Filing false reports with law enforcement is sometimes just allowed to pass but other times taken very seriously.

My car has been repeatedly identified as being outside an Asian massage parlor.

[HeadMistress]

This, from foxnews.com Holes emerge in Hawaii women's tale of survival in the Pacific | Fox News raises some questions:

"The pair said they thought about turning back, but the islands of Maui and Lanai didn't have harbors deep enough to accommodate their sailboat. At 50 feet long, however, the vessel is relatively small, and both islands have harbors that accommodate boats of that size. Plus, the Big Island — the southernmost island in Hawaii — has several places to dock. Appel, though, said she modified her sailboat, called the Sea Nymph, by adding six tons of fiberglass to the hull to make it thicker and heavier and extend the keel to a depth of 8.5 feet to give the boat greater stability."


First, where the heck could she have added 6 TONS of FG???? But even if she could, wouldn't enough weight to increase the draft about 3' also have raised the waterline about 3'? The boat doesn't look like it's sitting that low in the water. Or maybe it was and all that FG fell off, which could account for all the growth on the side of the hull.


Their story is getting fishier by the day!