Lost at sea
Let’s have a feel-good story, because why not.
Two women with their two dogs were lost in the Pacific in a small sailboat for five months, and then the Navy found them and rescued them.
The moment the two women and their dogs were finally rescued is captured on video, taken from the deck of a Navy boat.
The camera wobbles as the motorboat cuts across the ocean, some 900 miles southeast of Japan, toward the lone sailboat that had been sending distress signals for months after its engine died.
One of the women is on the deck, her arms outstretched.
She feverishly blows kisses toward the rescue boat. This is the reaction of someone who had been lost at sea for months.
Also the dogs are barking.
The Navy’s press release tells the story:
PACIFIC OCEAN (NNS) — The Sasebo-based amphibious dock landing ship USS Ashland (LSD 48) rendered assistance to two distressed mariners, Oct. 25, whose sailboat had strayed well off its original course.
The mariners, Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiaba, both from Honolulu, and their two dogs had set sail from Hawaii to Tahiti this spring. They had an engine casualty May 30 during bad weather but continued on, believing they could make it to land by sail.
Two months into their journey and long past when they originally estimated they would reach Tahiti, they began to issue distress calls. The two continued the calls daily, but they were not close enough to other vessels or shore stations to receive them.
On Oct. 24, they were discovered 900 miles southeast of Japan by a Taiwanese fishing vessel. The fishing vessel contacted Coast Guard Sector Guam who then coordinated with Taipei Rescue Coordination Center, the Japan Coordination Center, and the Joint Coordination Center in Honolulu to render assistance.
Operating near the area on a routine deployment, Ashland made best speed to the location of the vessel in the early morning on Oct. 25 and arrived on scene at 10:30 a.m that morning.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonathan Clay/Released)
After assessing the sailboat unseaworthy, Ashland crew members brought the distressed mariners and their two dogs aboard the ship at 1:18 p.m.
“And Toto too?” “Toto too.”
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jonathan Clay/Released)
“I’m grateful for their service to our country. They saved our lives. The pride and smiles we had when we saw [U.S. Navy] on the horizon was pure relief,” said Appel.
Appel said they survived the situation by bringing water purifiers and over a year’s worth of food on board, primarily in the form of dry goods such as oatmeal, pasta and rice.
Once on Ashland, the mariners were provided with medical assessments, food and berthing arrangements. The mariners will remain on board until Ashland’s next port of call.
“The U.S. Navy is postured to assist any distressed mariner of any nationality during any type of situation,” said Cmdr. Steven Wasson, Ashland commanding officer.
Well done Navy.
Thanks for the uplifting story in a grim, bleak world. (Now cue: Trump gives himself an A+ for the rescue…may mention the actual rescuers in passing).
I just love rescue stories. LOVE them.
I love rescue stories too, but there are a few takeaways for people intending a voyage.
Radio and flares are for inshore operations, make sure you have a modern ELB that transmits location.
There is no excuse for sailers to get lost. Carry a sextant and know how to use it in addition to GOS devices. Failing that, sail east or west until you hit land then turn north or south as appropriate. It’s basically what early explorers did.
Having the skills to survive on the ocean is critical. I know people who have built yachts and sailed around the world. Still, at least these two had food and water in abundance. They created their own luck to that extent.
I’m surprised that they survived for so long.
There’s something not quite right about this story, I’d like to ask the sailors some questions. The problem with sailing east or west until you hit land is that’s the problem, often the ‘land’ is a reef.
RJW, that’s one of many reasons so much effort was poured into the longitude problem. A huge proportion of early exploitation and trading vessels were lost.
Rob,
Yes. Have you read Dava Sobel’s book “Longitude”? It’s fascinating.
Outdoor Trail Geek | Low Tech Navigation – http://www.outdoortrailgeek.com/lowtechnav.html — discusses compasses and paper maps. A compass should give a reasonably-good approximation to the geographic directions in most places. But if you have a rough idea of where you are, you can apply a “magnetic declination” correction to improve your direction estimates.
Satellite navigation in the 18th century – LOW-TECH MAGAZINE – http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/01/satellite-nav-1.html — discusses celestial navigation. In its simplest form, it uses where the Sun is in the sky. Except in far northern or southern latitudes, it should be roughly eastward in the morning and westward in the afternoon. Since the Sun moves northward and southward over the year, one can get a good estimate of its position from what day it is.
At night, one can see the Moon and the stars, and one can do what one does with the Sun. The Moon and the planets move northward and southward, but the “fixed” stars don’t. So if you know which constellations rise at due east and set at due west, all one needs to do is find them. One can also get north and south from where the stars seem to move in small circles.
Devices like the sextant are for getting the elevation angle above the horizon. They are thus good for latitude, even if not for longitude.
How did they manage to get so lost, and were they becalmed, or just wallowing? I suppose they were in radio contact before the rescue boat actually showed up.
Seems they had adequate supplies for themselves and the dogs. But the report seems pretty close-lipped about the background.
Naval and rescue cooperation is another of those ‘globalist,’ ‘cosmopolitan’ relics that we may see lost under the current resurgence of nationalism.
I can’t rid myself of the feeling that there’s something not quite right with this duo’s story.
The concept of being completely unable to contact anyone seems so weird these days.
Years ago a bunch of friends and I went to the Scottish highlands for a holiday. The first thing we noticed was that our phones didn’t work, which was disconcerting. The second thing we noticed was that none of us had brought any cash with us and nobody within a reasonable distance accepted credit cards. It just didn’t occur to us that we’d be somewhere we’d need cash and not be able to get it.
In the end we managed to scrape enough cash together to get on a ferry to somewhere we knew there was an ATM. It was a weird feeling to be so close to home, yet so unprepared to survive for five fucking minutes.
“What are you eating on me?” “Everything!”
I think the boat owner Jennifer Appel is a wisenheimer.