NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: Frank Reed
Date: 2017 Oct 31, 05:50 -0700
More coverage on the growing inconsistencies in this story:
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5033909/Lost-sailors-did-not-activate-emergency-beacon.html
They told a harrowing tale of survival after their rescue, but many of their claims have now been called into question including:
- The woman claimed they did not have a standard Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) on their vessel. The Coast Guard found one on board and say it was never activated.
- The 'Force 11 storm' they claimed they encountered at the start of their journey, featuring 30-foot high seas and 60 mph winds over three days, was not recorded by meteorologists
- Their claim that they considered turning back after the storm but could not because the islands of Maui and Lanai did not have harbors deep enough for their boat - but there are several places they could have docked
- Their claim that, days later, they could not stop at a nearby island to fix their boat because it was 'uninhabited' - but Christmas Island, part of Kiribati, is home to over 2,000 people and often welcomes huge commercial ships
- Instead of stopping at Christmas Island, they set a new destination of 1,000 miles away in the Cook Islands - also hundreds of miles beyond their original destination of Tahiti
- When off Tahiti in June, the captain of the ship was reported to have told the Coast Guard they were fine and expected to land next morning - but months later they ended up in the western Pacific
Jennifer Appel said in an interview Tuesday that she did not turn the emergency beacon on because the pair did not feel they were in imminent danger. She claimed that in her experience the beacon should only be used when you are in imminent physical danger and going to die in the next 24 hours.
I've been waiting for someone to point out that the terrible three-day storm never existed... Was there any area of long-lasting weather --even just three days of squally weather-- that could fit their story?
Frank Reed