What To Know About Two Hawaiians' Lost-At-Sea Story That Doesn't Add Up
This week, the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied that a Taiwanese fishing vessel tried to kill two Americans who claimed to be lost at sea for five months. It's just the latest twist in the crazy saga of Jennifer Appel (pictured above) and Tasha Fuiava, two Honolulu residents who made international headlines when they were rescued by the US Navy about 900 miles south of Japan, only to have key portions of their story questioned by experts. Here's what you need to know about this wild, continually changing story.
Appel And Fuiava Were Rescued By A Naval Vessel In Late October
On Tuesday, October 24, a Taiwanese fishing vessel spotted Appel and Fuiava's 50-foot sailboat, the Sea Nymph, and contacted the Coast Guard to report that they needed help. The next day, Appel and Fuiava and their two dogs were rescued by a naval vessel called the USS Ashland, after Taiwanese. Appel and Fuiava told a harrowing story of being stranded at sea for five months after facing an intense storm, experiencing engine failure and losing one of their cell phones, which the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and other news sources took at face value after the Navy put out a press release and video about the rescue.
The women lost their engine in bad weather in late May but believed they could still reach Tahiti using their sails…
Two months into their trip, well after they were scheduled to arrive in Tahiti, the women began making distress calls, but there were no vessels close and they were too far out to sea for the signals to be detected on land.
But A Storm The Women Say Battered Their Ship Never Happened
Inconsistencies in the women's stories began emerging within a few days of their rescue. For instance, meteorologists had no record of a storm that Appel and Fuiava said battered their sailboat shortly after they left Honoloulu in early May.
The women said they encountered a fierce storm that unleashed 60 mph (97 kph) winds with 30-foot (9-meter) 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 50-foot 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's Description Of A Shark Attack Was Derided By Shark Experts As Unlikely
Appel told reporters that during the ordeal, a group of five tiger sharks 20 to 30 feet long stalked their boat for a week and then attacked to teach their young how to hunt. A shark expert named George Burgess disputed that account to the New York Times.
"It sounds like something a 4-year-old would tell you," he said. "No. No, no and no and no. There's not an iota of accuracy relative to our knowledge of the shark in any of that."
Tiger sharks are not social, do not teach their young in that way and have never been known to grow that large, he said.
And The Coast Guard Revealed They Never Activated The Emergency Beacon On Their Boat
The women initially claimed that six forms of communications on the boat all failed and that they felt that the Navy "saved our lives." However, the Coast Guard later discovered that the Sea Nymph had a working emergency beacon that would have beamed its location to rescuers, but Appel and Fuiava didn't turn it on.
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.
"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 Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle, who was on the call to the AP with Carr.
In A Today Show Interview This Week, The Women Defended Their Story
In response to the people who pointed out the inconsistencies in their story, Appel and Fuiava doubled down. In an interview with the Today Show, Appel said the storm "really felt a lot bigger" and the sharks "were six inches away." They also denied that the Coast Guard made contact with them in June, after their engine had supposedly died.
The Coast Guard has said they made radio contact with a vessel by the same name in June, and says those aboard confirmed they were OK and close to arriving in Tahiti.
Appel denied that that happened. Holding up a GPS that was aboard her boat, she said Wednesday, "Our GPS shows we were nowhere near Tahiti."
[NBC News]
Appel Now Says The Taiwanese Fishing Boat Tried To Kill Them
Appel added a new, confounding detail to her story during the Today Show interview: she now says the Taiwanese fishing vessel that was reported to have alerted the Coast Guard to the Sea Nymph's location actually purposely rammed the sailboat in an effort to kill Appel and Fuiava. Appel says she then climbed aboard the fishing boat and placed a call to the Coast Guard.
"The Taiwanese fishing vessel was not planning to rescue us," she continued. "They tried to kill us during the night."
It was then that Appel said she decided to alert the U.S. Coast Guard. But she claimed there was an explanation for why she still didn't use the EPIRB and instead used the satellite phone on the fishing vessel.
"I was able to get on a surfboard and get on their boat, make an actual phone call. Because no one spoke English, it was easier and safer for me to relay the information to the U.S. Coast Guard-Guam sector that we were in danger without them realizing what we were saying. If I had thrown the EPIRB at that point, he [the captain] would have known."
[NBC News]
The Taiwan Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Denies That The Attempted Murder Happened
Predictably, given the outlandish nature of Appel's new claim, the Taiwanese government denies that the fishing vessel ever tried to ram the Sea Nymph.
Citing data from Taiwan's National Rescue Command Center and the Fisheries Agency's e-monitoring system for fishing boats, [Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Andrew] Lee said the speed of the Feng Chun No. 66 and its positions at the time of the Oct. 24 encounter can prove that it did not ram the sailboat of the two Americans.
"We are not certain why they made such ungrounded accusations," Lee said.