US Navy rescues adventurers
According to Stars & Stripes, Taiwanese fishermen spotted Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava and their dogs Zeus and Valentine adrift about 900 miles south of Japan. The fishermen alerted the US Navy which sent USS ASHLAND to the rescue;
“Thank god we’ve been rescued,” was Appel’s first thought when she saw the American sailors approaching her stricken craft in a small boat launched from the Ashland Thursday morning.
“They saved our lives,” she said, according to a Navy statement about the rescue. “The pride and smiles we had when we saw [the Navy] on the horizon was pure relief.”
Their engine conked out on the ladies in late May and they were blown off-course trying to complete their journey with sails.
I’m glad the dogs are OK.
Category: Navy
HAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHA, HAHAHAHAHAHA oh dear Lord…pick a heading and stick to it.
Curious if they ran into Amelia Earhart.
Unfortunately, there was a third woman on that boat who succumbed to the elements. That woman’s name? That’s right, Elaine Ricci.
Ah so, Elaine makes five – Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.
Five passengers set sail that day……
I’d be curious to know if they came across Captain Bligh.
Not sure I cold navigate 3600 miles in an open dingy with 18 or 19 other people in the boat.
Travel Channel’s Mysteries At The Museum had a clip about Chief Petty Officer Harold Dixon the other night that related how his skills saved him and his two crew members. It got him the Navy Cross.
https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/stranded-at-sea-2255498/
William Bligh also later played a leading role in the victory at the battle of Camperdown.
This battle gave us the expression, “nail your colours to the mast”
About the only thing they did right was have enough food and a water purifier on board.
I don’t even THINK of traveling out of sight of land without some sort of satellite phone, GPS system, and the means to charge them if the boat’s electrical system fries.
According to the news this morning they had a sat phone but managed to drop it overboard a couple of weeks out… the engine was till working at that point and they had sails. TV news said they lost the sails a couple of months out, so they have essentially been drifting for three months or so. I would think having back-up comms and sails would have been a wise move. GPS is nice, but without comms all it does is tell you where you are drifting.
No such thing as “losing your sails”. Anything can be used as a sail to catch the wind.
You can rig a jig with a sheet, blanket or what the hell…they could have used the Main Sail they had wrapped up on the boom. Even the cover to it could have been used.
Nah, these two wanted rescued…the book will be available on Amazon in 6 months…movie rights are negotiable.
So you’re saying this was a publicity stunt for two gals looking for cash?
I tend to agree. If you’ve got spars and rigging still standing, you’ve got a way to put up canvas and move the boat forward. Looking at the photo, they had what appears to be a roller-reefed jib and a conventional mainsail gathered at the boom. Under usual points of failure, it’s possible to lose use of the jib by fouling the jib roller, or foul the main halyard at the masthead. It’s a stretch to imagine losing both at the same time.
Something else that doesn’t seem to make sense is that Tahiti is almost due south from Hawaii, and the rescue was southeast of Japan which would be almost due west.
Slightly OT: Years ago I sometimes had a salty dog of a wharf rat crew for me who had also crewed on ocean racers competing in the TransPac. He happened to mention one day that boats making the transit from Los Angeles to Hawaii didn’t have to worry that much about navigation, although they had plenty of such capability. Most of the time, he said, all you had to do was follow the jet contrails from LAX to Honolulu.
Yes, you see, when I go some place in a wooded area, I take a map of the trails. If that’s insufficient to find the way back to the parking lot so that I can get to McD’s, I can always look at the sky, and there is usually a plane on approach to a major airport, or leaving it behind.
I do not know how anyone can really get lost if they aren’t 5 years old, in the woods, in the dark. I used to go off on a horse for hours with no map or compass, and still found my way home for supper.
I have to agree that it’s a PR stunt to get some kind of prepaid contract for a book and/or a movie. I don’t think it quite fits in to the SV category, but it is teetering right on the edge.
The horse was hungry too?
I have experienced horses that could find their way back to camp or the horse trailer in the dark after only making the trip once. Finding their way back to the barn is never problem, sometimes whether you want to go back there or not.
so true so true – news reports in NZ saying “there is something a little fishy about all of this ” Full mast and shrouds what the heck are they supposed to have broken – and the sails are all in place
added to last – and why was the SAT phone not attached to said yacht in case it was accidentally dropped. More to this than meets the eye
I have 18 satellite phones left. If you know anyone who sails and wants one.
What’s the price?
They sell new for about $500. In Iraq and Afghanistan many Americans that were there just hanging about were issued SAT phones for some reason.
When their tourist visa expired and they all headed home…I bought about 200 of their phones.
All I have left is about 24 of them and a few of those are promised to people.
So I will sell 18 or so. If anyone wanted one I would probably ship it to them for a small donation to TAH.
Just have them contact me first.
Considering a new Iridium goes for $1000-1300, that’s a bargain.
Hook me up.
Ya, I tried Iridium. They suck. The satellites are way, way, out there in space.
The quality of the call is usually pretty bad, sun spots and heavy clouds cause a loss of signal.
The Government gave Globalstar to contractors for a reason. Not the sporty looking phone that Iridium is but it works much better.
JMHO
I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m in the market for one.
Well, since I finally broke my ruggedized phone…
Yeah, I would consider helping ya out with your overstock dilemma, Dave.
These are Globalstar phones. The quality of service since the satellite updates a few years back are by far the best connection quality.
They are dual band so they also can pick up the low band on Verizon networks.
To use the Satellite connection you must have a clear path to the sky. Clouds do not affect these much because Globalstar satellites have a much lower orbit that the others.
Just to be clear, these are for remote use. Hundreds of miles out to sea or in very remote locations that have no cellular service.
dave@militaryphony.com if you are interested.
Someone on the radio this morning said…
“It’s like they were going to drive from Washington D.C. to Richmond VA and they ended up in Hagerstown MD.” WTF?!?!?
Once my wife left NYC headed for Oswego, NY and she called me to ask for directions when she passed a sign that said “Welcome to Maryland”.
I knew a guy one time who went through Trinity, TX, three times trying to get back to Huntsville from Austin.
Then he was foolish enough to tell everyone about it.
WTH??? 290 to 21 to 30. How hard is that? How on earth did he PASS through Huntsville and end up on 19, THREE TIMES??
When I was a kid, my father PCS’d from Huachuca to Hood. Father in one car, mother driving other.
My mother literally got LOST in Van Horn, TX after stopping for lunch.
hahahahaha. I remember to this day.
Lost in Van Horn? That has to be some kind of record. Town is small enough to have the entrance and exit signs on one post. One of those “this will be a nice town, wasn’t it?” kind of places.
No. Fucking no. Not possible.
Usually have the instincts of a homing pigeon, but there was this one time in the rain, in heavy traffic. We were able to make it a cross country adventure after we saw one of those “Welcome to” signs for a state south of our original routing.
Yeah, it’s still pretty funny.
My mother had a claim to fame while I was growing up in a small Iowa town right smack dab in the middle of an entire sea of cornfields.
She got lost in Bentonsport Iowa, a town of about 200 people and it took her 3 hours to find her way home, a 40 minute drive from Keosauqua Iowa.
I made sure she never lived it down…
Glad the dogs are good too.
I am not a sailor in any form or fashion. That is my brother and my nephew.
My time with the Sunfish sailboats confirms that I ought not to be out of sight – or swim range – of shore. However I can reliably take a canoe from point A to point B on a large lake.
Even I know how to take a bearing and even navigate by the stars.
Trying something like these gals did is foolhardy in the extreme. They survived because they were smart enough to have a water purification system on board and plenty of dry food. If the water purification system had failed, however, they’d have been in a world of hurt.
I’ll bet the cabin smelled of fish…for several reasons.
Nice, yuck, but nice.
No HF radio?
I guess they never heard of Thor Heyerdahl.
Glad the dogs are ok.
Not the brightest light bulbs in life’s utility drawer.
The dog could have had a warm meal before its rescue.
And the reward that these two women will receive for their sheer stupidity?
Book and/or movie deal. Probably both.
And the clueless daytime TV talk/variety show hosts will gush at them, calling them ‘heroes’ for surviving their ‘ordeal’.*
* While conveniently omitting the uncomfortable fact that these two idiots brought all of this on to themselves.
In my younger days we backpacked out into Denali. No cell phones, just with packs and our maps. But we made sure to give the rangers our expected route and told our families when we’d be checking in.
Find it hard to believe you’d set out across the Pacific without telling someone when you’ll be someplace. Did nobody miss these gals?
This sounds like an unfortunate “Into the Wild” experience.
Bill them for the rescue
I knew there are people who would get lost in a paper bag. This proves it.
I am also glad the dogs are okay.
I am so disappointed that in reading the above not one person has used the phrase “three hour tour”
Just had to go there, didn’t you?
I was on a carrier when we got word that a fishing boat sent out a distress call for an injured crewman.
We diverted and sent the SAR bird. No shit when they brought the guy into the ship’s ER…he had a fishing hook through the finger.
Clipped the barb off, backed the hook out….done.
Dunno what kind of bill the guys ended up paying but our XO was definitely unhappy about the situation.
What kind of fishermen don’t know how to deal with an accidental hooking? Short of catching one in the eye or the scrotum, I think my trusty Leatherman and a little whiskey could handle it.
it was a medium sized deep sea hook. The way it went through it didn’t even damage the bone or tendon sheath, circulation was intact. total non emergency
Sounds like a SOP call for EMS to drive someone to the ER because of a tummyache.
I always wanted to bash those idjits somewhere so they’d really need the ambulance.
I took a “tooth pain” call once. She refused to believe me that the ER would do absolutely nothing for her but tell her to go to a dentist.
I can’t even remember all of the toothache and upset stomach calls we ran when I was doing the EMT thing. Because, once upon a time, Medicaid paid ambulance bills. They wouldn’t spend the cash to take a cab, they’d take the am-b-lance so Medicaid would pay the bill.
Yep, had plenty of those.. “best” ever though was the lady who was so large she couldn’t get out of her recliner, or at least not do so and bend over.. she’d dropped her TV remote and could not retrieve it, so 911…
Ahh, yes. . . our “frequent flyers”. . .
I guess the fisherman was really “hooked” on fishing.
Well, I did run into a fly-fishing guy up in Wisconsin who had overthrown his line and caught the hook in his cheek. I had no wirecutters in my camera bag to get the hook out, so I had to tell him to go the nearest ranger station and ask for help, about a quarter mile.
No pen knife? You could have left him a great “story” scar.
The videos of this rescue I saw all showed a mainsail on their boat in the furled position. How do you stay lost in the pacific for five months if you have a sail?
If only we could invent something to help poor sailors, like HF radios, GPS, Satellite phones or even emergency locator beacons. It’s not their fault you know, I’m sure it’s Trumps fault or maybe G. Bush.
https://www.westmarine.com/personal-locator-beacons-plbs
Read this last night and my only comment was who the fuck starts a trans pacific voyage without a compass? Go in one direction long enough and you hit something
So this whole things sounded weird to me from day one…they had no EPIRBS, and they planned a sail but they don’t know how to run a jury rigged spinnaker of genoa with just lines instead of a mast?
There’s so much weirdness around this story I won’t be surprised to find it’s some sort of bullshit story at a later date.
Once again, VOV, we agree…
When Lisa Blair was making her Antarctica solo sail her mast snapped, she jury rigged the setup shown in this image…and she cleared the broken parts in 40 knot winds and 30 foot seas….balls of steel regardless of her gender.
Somebody I’ve long thought is a remarkable sailor is Robin Knox-Johnson who in 1969 completed the first single-handed non-stop circumnavigation in the 38-foot ketch Suhaili. Another is Joshua Slocum and his 1895 solo circumnavigation, with stops, in Spray, a 37-foot sloop.
i wonder if they were both 2nd LT with a Map and Compass…
SPEW ALERT, please.
It hurts when you snork beer out of your nose.
This whole story stinks to high heaven. I read a book about a young man who fell in love with an australian lass during WWII. At the end of the war he found himself in california without enough money to get back to her. He bought a 26 foot sailboat, sailed it around the harbour and set off for australia. He had zero sailing experience and none of the gee whiz electronics that even day sailors carry today. With nothing more than some charts and a compass he sailed across the pacific. Hid boat foundered about 300 miles short of his destination but he made to his sweet heart. He made the whole trip in less time than these nitwits were lost and adrift. These two are typical of the left, when it gets bad they sit and wait for the government to rescue them.
Joshua Slocum is my hero
His book “sailing alone around the world” is an understated classic sailing adventure
As others have said it is plain as day there is a jib and mainsail furled on that boat
Who knows what other sails, for instance a spinnaker and spinnaker pole might be stored below deck
Even if the halyards are broken they could jury rig some method to get the sails up
Sailing due east following the rising sun will hit the Americas
It looks like like did not even try to help themselves
After doing a little research my working hypothesis is that the story is BS.
Tahiti is about 2200 miles almost due south of Hawaii. At about 100 miles per day they would have been almost to Tahiti when their engine failed. Instead, they were about 2000+ miles due west of Honolulu.
For a trip that should have taken about a month they had food for a year.
They didn’t start making distress call until about two months at sea.
http://www.southpacific.org/pacific/yachting.html
http://www.sailnet.com/forums/seamanship-articles/19099-run-through-trades.html
Watching the ABC Evening News. Lead in to the story is “At Times Surrounded By Sharks”. Gee, ya think? It is the ocean, after all.
Yeah, but those Tiger Sharks were taunting them.
I once took my 3 or 4 year old grandson for a walk thru the wood lot here on the farm on an overgrown logging road we call the upper loop. When we got back to the point where the trail meets itself I asked if he knew where he was. Without hesitation he replies ” Yeah Poppy, I’me right here.” Couldn’t argue with that.
I guess they did not have a DSC (digital selective calling) transmitter on board where they could just hit the red button and your location goes out to other mariners whom have the same setup. This works on RTTY, Sitor B, 100 baud, 170 shift (FEC), But the number of bytes are a little different than the standard RTTY Sitor B mode.
Did they mention to the press that Capt. Nemo’s (James Mason) Nautilous surfaced with Kirk Douglas sitting on the bow with a guitar singing I’ve got a whale of a tale to tell you boys, a whale of a tale that’s true.
“Blown off course trying to use the sails?!?”
What did these ladies think the sails on a sailboat were for?
Are they employed by the USN/CG?
Update from Fox with more photos – and the money quote: ““Had [the USS Ashland] not been able to locate us, we would have been dead within 24 hours,” Appel told reporters”
http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/10/30/women-lost-at-sea-for-five-months-are-already-planning-next-boating-vacation.html