Tasha Fuiava, left, and Jennifer Appel, with their dogs on the deck of the USS Ashland. Photos / AP
The US Coast Guard has confirmed that two women who said they were lost at sea for five months never activated their emergency beacon, adding to a growing list of inconsistencies that cast doubt on their tale of survival.
Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, both from Hawaii, were rescued by the US Navy 1450km southeast of Japan and recounted how they had survived with a pair of pet dogs on board.
They described a litany of disasters including storms, sharks and failing equipment, telling how they thought they were going to die.
But, while the seafarers maintain they gave a truthful account of their odyssey, experts have highlighted a series of questions about their account.
The biggest doubts were raised when it transpired their sailing boat had an emergency beacon on board, but they failed to activate it.
At one point they also sailed past an inhabited island, and weather experts could find no record of a huge storm they said had damaged their boat.
According to the two women, they met for the first time in Hawaii last year and decided to set sail from Honolulu on the Sea Nymph, a 15m vessel, on an 18-day voyage to Tahiti, 4185km away in the South Pacific. Fuiava had never sailed before, while Appel was an experienced sailor.
The women told rescuers that on May 3, their first day at sea, they ran into a storm that battered them with 95km/h winds and 9m waves for three days. Appel said she lost her mobile phone overboard.
But the National Weather Service in Honolulu said there was no such storm in the area at the time, and Nasa satellite images confirmed that.
The sailors described how parts of their mast and rigging failed but they still had a working motor.
Heading south they sailed up to an island but decided not to land, believing it was mostly uninhabited. But Christmas Island is home to more than 2000 people, and has a port.
According to their account they then set out in an attempt to reach the Cook Islands 1600km away, but another storm killed their engine at the end of May. But the US Coast Guard said they made radio contact with a vessel in June near Tahiti, and the captain said they were not in distress and expected to reach land the next morning.
Five months after they set out, thousands of kilometres off course, the women and their dogs, Valentine and Zeus, were picked up, all in good health.
Lieutenant Scott Carr, a US Coast Guard spokesman, said there was a satellite Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) on the Sea Nymph, but it was never used.
Appel said she did not activate the beacon because the boat was still seaworthy, they had water purifiers and a year's worth of dry food, and felt they could get somewhere to make repairs. She said: "EPIRB calls are for people who are in an immediate life-threatening scenario."
She said they were initially picked up off Japan by a Taiwanese fishing boat. As that was towing them the Sea Nymph sustained damage leading to a life-threatening situation. The boat then contacted the US Coast Guard in Guam, leading to their rescue, she said.
Here's a look at some of the inconsistencies in their story:
BAD WEATHER, LOST PHONE
Appel and Fuiava left for their planned 18-day trip to Tahiti on May 3. The women said they encountered a fierce storm that unleashed 95km/h winds with 9m seas. The pair said they rode out the storm that lasted three days because there were no ports deep enough in Maui or the Big Island for their modified 15m sailboat.
The National Weather Service reported no bad storms during that time. And numerous ports on Maui and the Big Island can accommodate vessels as large as cruise ships.
The women said they lost their cellphone overboard during the May 3 storm.
The Coast Guard received a call from the captain of the Sea Nymph on May 6 that they lost a phone, but the agency could not clarify if those aboard lost a satellite phone or a cellular phone.
The agency deployed a plane, which found the sailboat about 215km south of the Big Island. The Sea Nymph reported it was not in distress.
COMMUNICATIONS
The pair said they had six ways to communicate, ranging from VHF radio to a satellite phone, but all failed. Phil Johnson, a retired Coast Guard officer who was responsible for search and rescue operations, said he had never heard of all communication devices failing.
The women carried an emergency beacon, which uses satellites to send a location to authorities in minutes.
In an interview with AP, Appel said the beacons only work if airplanes are flying overhead, and the pilots would relay the information to the Coast Guard. She said she didn't activate it because they were not under a known flight path.
"The system does not rely in any way on aircraft to pick up their signal and relay their information," Johnson said from Washington state. "It's all done by satellite."
He said Appel's comments made him think she didn't how the beacon works.
BOATING PLAN
Mariners are encouraged to file their planned routes with friends or relatives in case of problems. The documents include specifics about the trip, and when and where the boat will arrive. It's similar to filing a backcountry hiking plan in case you get lost. Appel told reporters she left a plan with her mother in Houston, and with friends in Honolulu.
Coast Guard officials met with Appel and Fuiava in Japan this week and learned no plan was filed. Fuiava also said she had informed family of their route and that relatives had reported the pair missing with calls from California, American Samoa and Alaska. The Coast Guard has no records of those calls.
CALLS TO COAST GUARD
Appel's mother, Joyce, told AP that she called the Coast Guard in Hawaii about 10 days after the voyage started when she hadn't heard from her daughter.
The agency said it was contacted May 19 by a male friend of the family, reporting the pair overdue into Tahiti. It calculated the normal course and speed for a sailboat and told the caller they would probably not arrive until mid-June.
TAHITI CALL?
A Coast Guard plane was looking for another missing boat near Tahiti on June 15 and also tried to contact the women's vessel on VHF radio. It got a response from a boat identifying itself as the Sea Nymph, which said it planned to make land in Tahiti the following morning.
However, Appel told the Coast Guard after the rescue that they were 2415km away on June 12. The plane could not have made contact that far away, Coast Guard Lieutenant Scott Carr said.
"There are many vessels out there," Carr said. "Was it a different vessel? We don't know."
SHARKS
One night when the women were adrift, they said huge tiger sharks bombarded their boat for hours. They claimed a group of 20- to 30-foot tiger sharks split up and tried to capsize the boat. One jumped out of the water and smashed into the vessel, they told reporters.
University of Hawaii professor and veteran shark researcher Kim Holland has never heard stories of any kind of shark repeatedly attacking a boat.
"They wouldn't be tiger sharks, and they are not known to have any sort of coordinated feeding strategy, and also they don't come out of the water," Holland said.
In fact, no sharks are known to hunt in packs, he said. The largest known tiger sharks are about 5m long.
WAKE ISLAND
The women seemed to be out of radio contact for months, with no known sightings or communication.
In interviews last week, they spoke of the storms, the sharks and attempts to get help in Kiribati. Not until an interview on Monday in Japan did they mention an attempt to radio for help at Wake Island on October 1 or 2.
The women said the harbour there is built for submarines, and they couldn't navigate in without a motor. They called for help for a tow but said no one seemed to understand them and they drifted off.
- additional reporting AP
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