# Sailors rescued after five months adrift **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 27, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019 "2017-10-27T20:58:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/41 "2017-10-28T18:18:37Z")
It smells more like stupidity than a hoax, but those things can go hand in hand. Obviously the sailors did not have enough experience for this voyage, sailing around the Hawaiian islands, not matter how often for how long is not the same as sailing on the open sea. I don’t know how to sail, but I’d be quite willing to take a power boat out on the ocean within a few miles of land, not far out in the open sea between continents, mainly because I don’t want to, but largely because I know I don’t have the knowledge and experience for that kind of thing. Now I can understand one of these women after a long time adrift, intentionally or otherwise, starting to get nervous about sharks, weather, etc., and thinking her days are numbered, that doesn’t spell hoax to me, and packing tons of food doesn’t spell hoax either, it’s just the kind of planning that someone inexperienced but not brain damaged might do. And even if you were planning a hoax you’d get better communications equipment and just break it or dump it in the water when you spotted another boat. Except of course, maybe they did dump their better equipment when they spotted a boat, and maybe they are stupid enough to think they could pull off this hoax, but I’ll stick with Occam’s razor and say they were just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/42 "2017-10-28T19:13:20Z")
5 months? Try [14+ months w/ no food or water!](https://www.amazon.com/438-Days-Extraordinary-Story-Survival/dp/1501116304) Pikers! ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/43 "2017-10-28T19:22:27Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > I have to agree with some other posters that this was likely intentional. Do not underestimate the desire that some people have to be noticed and to profit from notoriety. I’m quite sure we will see a book about this shortly. “Let’s go adrift for 5 months and rake in that sweet, sweet book cash” Yep, that’s it, not the vastly more likely basic incompetence. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/44 "2017-10-28T19:51:28Z")
With a convoluted enough hoax they would not really have been lost at sea for months, merely lied about it. One does have to wonder what is the expected value of a book deal versus losing a perfectly good boat (apparently a Morgan 45 sloop; you can get one for under $100000) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/45 "2017-10-28T19:59:23Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > With a convoluted enough hoax they would not really have been lost at sea for months, merely lied about it. One does have to wonder what is the expected value of a book deal versus losing a perfectly good boat (apparently a Morgan 45 sloop; you can get one for under $100000) Lot’s of people have $100,000 boats, but not as many as get their pictures on the cover of People magazine! ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/46 "2017-10-28T21:18:51Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > 5 months? Try [14+ months w/ no food or water!](https://www.amazon.com/438-Days-Extraordinary-Story-Survival/dp/1501116304) Pikers! How about [Steven Callahan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Callahan)? 76 days in a rubber raft with no food or water. (Well, technically, he managed to salvage a single soggy box of raisins and a blown can of beans, the latter of which he threw as far as he could before he could be tempted to risk botulism.) He rigged solar stills, caught fish with a broken spear, and improvised navigational tools to track his location. He maintained an exercise regimen (which eventually including pumping a bicycle pump between his hands several hundred times a day to keep the raft inflated). He managed well enough that, after being picked up just offshore of Marie-Galante island, he was examined and treated at the hospital, and he left the same evening. He later wrote a [book](https://www.amazon.com/Adrift-Seventy-six-Days-Lost-Sea/dp/0618257322/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1509225429&sr=8-1&keywords=adrift) about the experience, which I found very engaging. He also holds several patents, including two on (much improved) life raft designs. The gulf in competence between him and these drifters is…deep. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2017, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/47 "2017-10-28T21:39:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > It smells more like stupidity than a hoax, but those things can go hand in hand. Obviously the sailors did not have enough experience for this voyage, sailing around the Hawaiian islands, not matter how often for how long is not the same as sailing on the open sea. I don’t know how to sail, but I’d be quite willing to take a power boat out on the ocean within a few miles of land, not far out in the open sea between continents, mainly because I don’t want to, but largely because I know I don’t have the knowledge and experience for that kind of thing. > > Now I can understand one of these women after a long time adrift, intentionally or otherwise, starting to get nervous about sharks, weather, etc., and thinking her days are numbered, that doesn’t spell hoax to me, and packing tons of food doesn’t spell hoax either, it’s just the kind of planning that someone inexperienced but not brain damaged might do. And even if you were planning a hoax you’d get better communications equipment and just break it or dump it in the water when you spotted another boat. Except of course, maybe they did dump their better equipment when they spotted a boat, and maybe they are stupid enough to think they could pull off this hoax, but I’ll stick with Occam’s razor and say they were just stupid. You probably meant Hanlon’s razor. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/48 "2017-10-29T00:29:03Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > They might get a book deal, but I don’t see the risk they took with their lives as having been worth it, as well as the expense of losing their boat. If this had been planned, they surely would have taken precautions so they wouldn’t lose the boat. > > If it were a hoax, surely they could have made it a more interesting story. As it is it’s just a story of two dodos drifting around for five months. They could have made it into a more gripping story of survival if they had planned it. > > These people appear to have been genuinely incompetent. I don’t think any further explanation is needed to explain what happened to them. It would be more suspicious if this had happened to people with more experience. > > Never underestimate the role of stupidity in any human endeavor. I don’t. I don’t necessarily think it was a hoax? I was just speculating what a motivation might be if it were. The strange thing to me was how much food they had. Though not an open water sailer myself, I’ve got a little more than a passing familiarity with crews who are. A year’s worth of food for a trip from Hawaii to Tahiti seems excessive. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/49 "2017-10-29T01:31:45Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > Book deal. I think their story, if it’s fake, is going to be easily debunked in which case no publisher is going to touch it. ---
**Author:** ![Buttercup\_Smith](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buttercup_smith/32/473_2.png) [@Buttercup\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buttercup_Smith)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/50 "2017-10-29T03:41:06Z")
They both looked mighty healthy to me. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/51 "2017-10-29T03:53:18Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think their story, if it’s fake, is going to be easily debunked in which case no publisher is going to touch it. Any book might be about the hoax. I also think the story’s fishy (no pun intended). One thing I haven’t seen addressed is this: Didn’t anyone notice they were gone for 5 months? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/52 "2017-10-29T04:26:37Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > One thing I haven’t seen addressed is this: Didn’t anyone notice they were gone for 5 months? They were reported missing on 19 May, so the US Coast Guard, at least, knows who made the report. ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/53 "2017-10-29T07:35:20Z")
I’m a stupid fuck, but I’ve owned a Hobie Cat for 20 years. I’ve recently inherited a fishing boat which was a huge mistake. I am super paranoid at getting more than a mile of shore. I’m hoping to take the fishing boat out to the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. I don’t know shit from shinola, but I’m a million times more a competent sailor than these fucktardts. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/54 "2017-10-29T11:08:25Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > I’m a stupid fuck, but I’ve owned a Hobie Cat for 20 years. I’ve recently inherited a fishing boat which was a huge mistake. I am super paranoid at getting more than a mile of shore. I’m hoping to take the fishing boat out to the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. I don’t know shit from shinola, but I’m a million times more a competent sailor than these fucktardts. Just by knowing you don’t know shit from Shinola you’re already more competent than these clowns. They’re the poster children for the Dunning-Kruger effect. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/55 "2017-10-29T11:30:14Z")
> [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > The strange thing to me was how much food they had. Though not an open water sailer myself, I’ve got a little more than a passing familiarity with crews who are. A year’s worth of food for a trip from Hawaii to Tahiti seems excessive. They were supposedly intending a 6 month trip in all, but this happened on the first leg. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/56 "2017-10-29T13:59:16Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > They were supposedly intending a 6 month trip in all, but this happened on the first leg. Most sailors know you can re-provision at virtually every port. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/57 "2017-10-29T14:23:54Z")
I’m no sailor so not sure if this is right, but it seems the damage to their boat was _just enough_ to stop them progressing, and the time they were adrift was _just enough_ to be out of the hurricane season of the Northern Hemisphere and out of the South Pacific waters during the typhoon season. They might have been very, very stupid and very, very lucky, or had been settled on an island for four months and ‘adrift’ for a few weeks, knowing they could fix the boat in an hour if needs be. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/58 "2017-10-29T14:50:33Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Most sailors know you can re-provision at virtually every port. Yeah, but if the plan was to hop round many different small island nations like they said, I can see it making sense to stock up in bulk with the stuff they liked at the start, if they had the space anyway. You don’t want to get caught out somewhere where they don’t have what you want, or give a terrible exchange rate, or have their card payment system down. Besides, as I think we’ve established, they certainly weren’t most sailors; calling them sailors at all is a bit of a stretch. Drifters works better 😉 Seems to me that bringing a massive stock of food was literally the only thing they did _right_, so I ain’t gonna give 'em a hard time for that. I’ll save the pointing and laughing for everything else they did. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/59 "2017-10-29T15:20:24Z")
I’m definitely favoring ‘stupid and lucky’ over ‘hoax’. With regard to food storage, it should be noted that on a 50-ft sailboat with 2 aboard, there’s a huge amount of space. I’ve been aboard one with 6 people (but no dogs) for 2 weeks, and it was impressively uncrowded and comfortable. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2017, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019/60 "2017-10-29T16:18:30Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Most sailors know you can re-provision at virtually every port. Except AA batteries at this one little shop in the Grenadines many years ago in my sailing days. Store owner stopped carrying them because it was too much of a bother since he kept selling out of them. :smack: Sigh. Reprovisioning is based upon what they have, not what you want. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sailors-rescued-after-five-months-adrift/800019.md?page=4)