QUESTIONS ARISING OVER THE TALE OF TWO RESCUED HAWAIIAN SAILORS

Winchester, VA – Yesterday we reported on the story of two women who had been rescued by the Navy after their planned 18 day trip from Hawaii to Tahiti turned into a 5 month adventure adrift at sea. The women, Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava, met in late December 2016 and decided almost immediately to make the 18 day sea voyage to Tahiti, then to travel the South Pacific and return to Hawaii in October. Fox News, CNN and the Associated Press are reporting that there are holes and inconsistencies in the women’s story. Of primary concern is the fact that the women had one properly registered, working, Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon on board, yet they never activated the beacon. The beacon is used to alert rescue locations worldwide if a vessel is in an emergent situation. When the women were rescued, they indicated that they would have died if they had not been rescued within the next 24 hours, however when asked why they did not activate their emergency beacon, Jennifer Appel had this response. Hmmm. Coast Guard Petty Officer 2^nd Class Tara Molle told CNN, “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.” Appel said that in retrospect there were two times she would have used the emergency beacon: first when they were off Hawaii around late June to early July, and again when they were off wake Island on October 1. The women have claimed that on the first night of their voyage, they battled through a “force 11 storm,” for three days and two nights, yet National Weather Service meteorologist Norman Hui told CNN that he found “no organized storm systems near the Hawaiian Islands on the dates of May 3 2017 or the few days afterward.” Fox News reports that archived NASA satellite images indicate that there were no tropical storms in the Hawaiian islands that day. Appel, surprised to hear this, said that they received a Coast Guard storm warning while sailing after sunset on May 3. The women said that they had considered turning back, but that Maui and Lanai did not have harbors deep enough to handle their boat. Both islands actually have harbors to accommodate 50 foot long vessels, but Appel said that their modifications to the Sea Nymph of an additional six tons of fiberglass to the hull making it thicker and heavier, and extending the keel to a depth of 8.5 feet for improved stability, rendered it unsuitable for those harbors. The Coast Guard had had contact with a vessel called Sea Nymph in June near Tahiti, and the captain of the vessel indicated that they were not in distress and would make landfall the next morning. Jennifer Appel said that they had been close to rescue a month ago, when they established contact with officials on the U.S. territory of Wake Island. She said, “”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, and they responded.” Appel continued, “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.” Wake Island authorities have not responded to inquiries about this incident. The women, who are currently staying at a hotel in Okinawa, are unable to receive media communications due to hotel policy and are so far not responding to email requests from CNN, but Fox News reports that they are already planning their next boating adventure.

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