Women, 2 dogs found after 5 months drifting in Pacific

A planned voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti aboard a small sailboat didn't start off well for two Honolulu women. One of their cellphones washed overboard and sank into the deep blue water on their first day at sea. About a month into their trip, bad weather caused their engine to lose power. Their mast was damaged. And then, as they drifted across thousands of miles of open ocean, their water purifier stopped working.

But the two sailors, accompanied by their dogs, were resourceful and prepared with more than a year's worth of food, and after more than five months of being lost in the vast Pacific Ocean, sending out daily distress calls that no one heard, they were rescued by the U.S. Navy on Wednesday about 900 miles southeast of Japan. Their intended destination: Tahiti — thousands of miles off course.

The women, identified by the Navy as Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, both of Honolulu, lost their engine in bad weather in late May but believed they could still reach Tahiti using their sails.

They credited the two dogs, which they called their companion animals, with keeping their spirits up.



https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/drifters-found-hawaii-tahiti-5-months-navy-1.14648468
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/two-american-sailors-rescued-after-five-months-sea-n814806

Just incredible!!! Made me so happy!!!!

Video:

[video=youtube;9kizISUTI-k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kizISUTI-k[/video]

Wonderful Story LOVE IT

Wow, was there a thread for them?? Did anyone report them missing?

wow - that is amazing!

“When I saw the gray boat on the edge of the horizon, my heart leapt,” Appel said on NBC’s “Today” show. “Because I knew we were about to be saved. Because I honestly believed we were going to die within the next 24 hours.” Appel and Tasha Fuiaba, both from Honolulu, had set sail for the Polynesian island of Tahiti in the spring.

Fuiaba told the “Today” show that she kept watch at night, sending distress calls and flares when other vessels were within sight. “And when they would turn or keep going,” she said. “Yeah, it was kind of sad.” Their distress signals, in fact, went unanswered for months. The Navy said that “they were not close enough to other vessels or shore stations to receive them.”

The pair had prepared for a long trip; they had water purifiers and over a year’s worth of food on board, mostly dry goods including oatmeal, pasta and rice.

But, at times, there were still other dangers surrounding them: sharks. Appel told the “Today” show that she once took the dogs downstairs and “we basically laid huddled on the floor and I told them not to bark because the sharks could hear us breathing. They could smell us.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-navy-and-pure-relief/?utm_term=.fdb14f1ff78a

Here is the Navy's Media Story: USS Ashland Assists Distressed Mariners in Pacific Ocean

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=103056

Thank you for posting this story, JG. It’s so lovely to see a happy ending. God Bless those women, their dogs and their rescuers.

TTF14 said:

Wow, was there a thread for them?? Did anyone report them missing?

Click to expand...

Appel's mom called the Coast Guard. Here's the story:

Appel’s mother said she never gave up hope her daughter would be found. She said that after not hearing from her daughter about a week and a half after the women left Honolulu, she called the Coast Guard, which mounted a search while “I waited and waited and waited.”

She finally got a call from her daughter early Thursday.

https://durangoherald.com/articles/191625

How long did they expect this trip to last? Longer than a month? Why did mother contact Coast Guard a week and a half after they left, then?

I’m glad they’re okay; I hope their story is true.

Morag said:

I’m glad they’re okay; I hope their story is true.

Click to expand...

Hmm...
These two had an emergency radio beacon but didn't use it.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/...st-sailors-did-not-activate-emergency-beacon/

jjenny said:

Hmm...
These two had an emergency radio beacon but didn't use it.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/...st-sailors-did-not-activate-emergency-beacon/

Click to expand...

strange.

“We asked why during this course of time did they not activate the EPIRB. She had stated they never felt like they were truly in distress, like in a 24-hour period they were going to die,” said a Coast Guard spokeswoman.

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.

Experts say some of the details of the women’s story do not add up.

The beacons are solid and built to be suddenly dropped in the ocean. “Failures are really rare,” but added that old and weak batteries also could cause a unit not to work.

It’s not clear if the pair had tested it before the journey.

There is also this:
"But the weather service in Honolulu said no organized storm systems were in or near Hawaii on May 3 or in the days afterward. Archived NASA satellite images confirm there were no tropical storms around Hawaii that day; the hurricane season begins June 1."
http://www.staradvertiser.com/2017/10/31/hawaii-news/lost-sailors-never-activated-emergency-beacon/

And this:
"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."
http://www.denverpost.com/2017/10/31/hawaiian-women-lost-at-sea/

There was something fishy (excuse the pun) about this story from start.

mister happy said:

There was something fishy (excuse the pun) about this story from start.

Click to expand...

:floorlaugh:

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

Sailors Rescued After Months at Sea Didn’t Activate Emergency Beacon
by Associated Press

HONOLULU — 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.

Parts of their story have been called into question, including the tropical storm the two say they encountered on their first night at sea in May. National Weather Service records show no organized storms in the region in early May...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...-sea-didn-t-activate-emergency-beacon-n815876

I knew there was something odd here from the start.
What do they want? Book deal?