Yeah, that too.
It might be good to clarify what people mean by a “hoax of some sort.”
I think it’s very unlikely that this pair set out with the plan to drift around or stay on an uninhabited island for five months just for publicity or a book deal. That’s exactly because their account is so disjointed and inconsistent. If you were planning a hoax from the outset, you wouldn’t go almost to Tahiti (which seems to be confirmed) and then end up off Japan. You wouldn’t include details like the storm that could easily be fact-checked. You wouldn’t admit that you had an emergency beacon that you never used. You wouldn’t admit that you didn’t have a clue as to what you were doing, but you would portray yourself as surviving through ingenuity and courage.
On the other hand, their account is not just implausible, it clearly does not conform to reality and in some ways is self-contradictory. They are certainly making their situation to have been more dire than it actually was. So if you mean by “hoax” that their account they’ve given is untrue in many respects, then I agree with that.
As I understand it, Appel swam to the Taiwanese fishing boat, and despite the language difficulties convinced them to allow her to use their radio, which put her in touch with the Ashland. So they knew the Ashland was on its way without needing to activate the beacon.
Ah, makes sense. The initial report I read (may be unreliable), was that she swam to the fishing boat after they started towing them, because their boat was getting damaged in the process. So, they chose to untie from the fishing boat and remain in their damaged vessel and await the Ashland. But, if they were only 24 hours away from certain death, why did they not remain aboard the fishing boat?
From the link in post #156, they are changing their story once again. Now they are claiming they felt threatened by the fishermen. But I think their “fear of certain death” was due to the roughness of the tow from the fishing boat.
About the only unquestionable fact in this whole story is that these folks are several fries short of a Happy Meal.
I suspect it may have been self exploration like a vision quest:
The emergency beacon they carried seem to indicate their story is real to some degree in that it appears they may have put themselves in these circumstances intentionally knowing that if it came down to it they could hit the emergency beacon at anytime. An exploration of what it would feel like to be lost at sea without the real risk of it. Not so unrelated to a vision quest where one journeys into the wilderness to seek themselves (who they are), knowing they can end it at any time easy, but willing to go through with it till such time which it naturally ends.
On the other hand, as others have mentioned, part of the problem with being skeptical is that there’s no readily-imagined alternative to their story. If they weren’t just drifting all that time, what were they doing, and why would they conceal it? I guess I feel like I’m being hoaxed, but I admit that I have no idea what the scam – if there is one – would be.
The story has been portrayed as them “drifting,” but they weren’t really. It’s unclear at what point their mast spreader became damaged (if it ever did). They said it was after they left Hawaii but before they reached Kiribati. But they also said they had “limited maneuvering ability.” That was clearly enough for them to decide to carry on and go to Tahiti (but for some reason not land or do repairs).
Then they evidently voluntarily headed to the northern Cook Islands. As I’ve mentioned, getting from the Cooks into the North Pacific Gyre pretty much requires some active sailing rather than passively drifting. The biggest mystery is why and how they got from the northern Cooks to near Wake Island, which they say they reached (but have given contradictory accounts of whether or not they tried to make contact).
I don’t know for sure if there is a scam - though I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Getting a book deal, or appearing on Steve Harvey, The View, etc. would seem to be the goal.
If a ship/boat were to sink, a marine EPIRB will automatically release from its mounting bracket, and will automatically begin sending a distress signal.
*Activation
There are two ways to activate a beacon:
manually
automatically
Automatic EPIRBs are water activated, while automatic ELTs have impact monitors activated by g-force. Some EPIRBs also “deploy”; this means that they physically depart from their mounting bracket on the exterior of the vessel (usually by going into the water.)
For a marine EPIRB to begin transmitting a signal (or “activate”) it first needs to come out of its bracket (or “deploy”). Deployment can happen either manually where someone must physically remove it from its bracket or automatically where water pressure will cause a hydrostatic release unit to separate the EPIRB from its bracket. If it does not come out of the bracket it will not activate. There is a magnet in the bracket which operates a reed safety switch in the EPIRB. This prevents accidental activation if the unit gets wet from rain or shipped seas.
Once deployed, EPIRBs can be activated, depending on the circumstances, either manually (crewman flicks a switch) or automatically (when water contacts the unit’s “sea-switch”.) All modern EPIRBs provide both methods of activation and deployment, and thus are labelled “Manual and Automatic Deployment and Activation.”*
Appel has said that if they hadn’t been rescued when they were, they would have been dead within 24 hours. Since an EPIRB also has a manual activation switch, I wonder why the EPIRB was never activated.
Because Appel’s statements can’t be taken at face value. They were no more in danger of dying at that point than they were when the 30-foot tiger shark was about to jump into the boat.
The boat never sunk.
Or several trotter short of a luau.
We’re doing this?! Oh goody!
…Or coming down heavy on three engines.
Pretty pretty pretty good.
**Czarcasm **- thanks for that link. The author offers some well-reasoned arguments against the womens’ story.
A good run-down. Most compelling for me are the part about their (and the dogs’) health (take a look at the photo of the dog - it’s nails look quite trim and equally so, as if they are worn down by natural forces like walking and not being trimmed with a clipper - I would expect the dog’s nails to be quite long being on a boat for so long), and this part:
They say that their tech was all broken before May 30, which is why they didn’t see the storm coming, but then they say they sent out distress calls for five months. On what?
Motivation: Perhaps one of them wanted to be alone with the other for a long time. Just sayin’.
That… actually makes a frightening amount of sense. It explains why someone who supposedly has lots of experience would invite along someone who had no experience at all (and hence wouldn’t be able to spot inconsistencies), why she’d pack so much food, why they would fake emergencies when there weren’t, and why they wouldn’t call for help in any way.
Your first and last sentences say it all. Someone in the know could find out rather easily.