Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on October 26, 2017, 01:59:15 PM
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So I'm glad they (and the dogs!) made it through okay, and that they were well-prepared with food and water. However, I'm puzzled that two people so well-prepared on the one side apparently dropped the ball on comms.
The story might be missing some information, but EPIRB? Sat phone? Either should have gotten them noticed. I know sat phones can be finicky, but at some point in five months they should have been able to get a signal, even just to put a text message in the buffer. I understand EPIRB response can also be "interesting" in international waters (maybe Dogmush or DM1333 can chime in), but between those two devices, they should have been able to make contact.
Also hard to tell from the story, but it sounds like they putzed around for nearly two months before they decided they needed help, so maybe they simply never thought they were in danger or great distress, though that wouldn't explain the apparent calls for help on the radio.
Anyway, again, good on them for covering the life sustaining preps, but the comms has me puzzled.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/26/navy-rescues-mariners-dogs-stranded-in-pacific-ocean-for-5-months.html
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Motor breaks down, they tried to sail their way there. Since the ship didn't sink, the EPIRB never had cause to go off.
And since it sounds like they were well outside (~900 miles) outside of normal shipping lanes, plus may not have been on right freq's.
"The two continued the calls daily, but they were not close enough to other vessels or shore stations to receive them," the Navy said
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Motor breaks down, they tried to sail their way there. Since the ship didn't sink, the EPIRB never had cause to go off.
You can activate an EPIRB any old time you want. :)
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I'm more of a land guy, but I think anyone who goes out of sight of land without an EPIRB is insane.
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Epirb has a manual activated switch....and the USCG gets notice of all activations for US registered devices IIRC
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Interesting life that no one was particularly worried to not hear from these girls for that long.
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I'd like to hear the backstory on this one. My first question would be as to the experience level prior to setting off.
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A 416 Mhz EBIRB is pretty reliable, anywhere on earth. The are in polar orbits so there aren't any high lat dead zones, and there are enough in the constellation that the dwell time is 4 hours max. You WILL be seen by one inside of 4 hours.
Sat phones depend on the sats you're using but I find them to be pretty reliable.
Every commercial EPIRB can be manually activated, there's no need to sink your boat. That's actually prefered: Turn it on and wait on the boat for someone to find you.
Depending on the size of the vessel and paranoia level of the "mariners", it's not uncommon to see vessels with VHF, and MF/HF coms but no sat coms. Sat com is still pretty pricey, and MF/HF usually works pretty well. Most commercial ships are still equipped with, and required by international law to monitor, the MF/HF distress bands, but if folks aren't familiar with the radio system, they can be tricky to get to work in a useful fashion. Pushing the big red "distress" button will send out a signal, but if you don't include useful information lots of folks will just clear it unless it's real close. You have to request an MF/HF relay, which will get it to a shore based Rescue Station.
It sounds like they needed a better "Go to Hell" plan.
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Interesting life that no one was particularly worried to not hear from these girls for that long.
https://youtu.be/8CVbku6nxhU?t=24
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A 416 Mhz EBIRB is pretty reliable, anywhere on earth. The are in polar orbits so there aren't any high lat dead zones, and there are enough in the constellation that the dwell time is 4 hours max. You WILL be seen by one inside of 4 hours.
Not sure if you were responding to what I mentioned in my OP, and I should have used clearer language. When I mentioned EPIRB "response" in International waters, I was actually referring to the human response versus the tech. I had heard that in some parts of the world, where the response may be handed to "the locals" as it were (AKA the SAR point of contact), that not all governments go to town the way we do when the EPIRB goes off, nor have as good of SAR capabilities.
Pretty much every NOAA met satellite that goes up now has a SAR component to the payload. We also work with other countries to put the capabilities in some of their sats. I have no idea how everything meshes together between them and us.
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"A three hour tour....."
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There will be some interesting commentary on the sailing boards about this one.
https://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/5000-miles-off-course.188128/ (https://forums.sailboatowners.com/index.php?threads/5000-miles-off-course.188128/)
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So I'm glad they (and the dogs!) made it through okay, and that they were well-prepared with food and water. However, I'm puzzled that two people so well-prepared on the one side apparently dropped the ball on comms.
The story might be missing some information, but EPIRB? Sat phone? Either should have gotten them noticed. I know sat phones can be finicky, but at some point in five months they should have been able to get a signal, even just to put a text message in the buffer. I understand EPIRB response can also be "interesting" in international waters (maybe Dogmush or DM1333 can chime in), but between those two devices, they should have been able to make contact.
Also hard to tell from the story, but it sounds like they putzed around for nearly two months before they decided they needed help, so maybe they simply never thought they were in danger or great distress, though that wouldn't explain the apparent calls for help on the radio.
Anyway, again, good on them for covering the life sustaining preps, but the comms has me puzzled.
They apparently also didn't have very good navigation equipment. They were found thousands of miles from where they wanted to go. GPS failed? If I were planning a long ocean voyage like that, I think I would at least buy a basic sextant and take a course in basic celestial navigation as a backup to electronics. Dead reckoning can only take you so far ...
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After careful consideration my initial preliminary conclusion is that these two were clueless.
I'll wait on more information before I can definitively decided if they are actual *expletive deleted*ing morons.
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They apparently also didn't have very good navigation equipment. They were found thousands of miles from where they wanted to go. GPS failed? If I were planning a long ocean voyage like that, I think I would at least buy a basic sextant and take a course in basic celestial navigation as a backup to electronics. Dead reckoning can only take you so far ...
If they each had a smartphone, they had at least two spare GPS units. Not sure what their battery charging capability was once the engine died. If they skipped getting an EPIRB, they may have blown off getting a solar charger or similar.
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After careful consideration my initial preliminary conclusion is that these two were clueless.
I would have gone with clueless right off the bat, but like I said, the food and the desalinator* threw me. You know enough and are prepped enough to get a desalinator, but not enough to get an EPIRB - even just a personal EPIRB? Even the cheapest desalinators cost more than an average EPIRB. Perplexing.
* I am assuming the reporters meant desalinator when they said "water purifier". Otherwise that boat had a few pallets of bottled water onboard. :laugh:
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If they each had a smartphone, they had at least two spare GPS units. Not sure what their battery charging capability was once the engine died. If they skipped getting an EPIRB, they may have blown off getting a solar charger or similar.
You can see the both a wind generator and solar panel on the boat in the video. When becalmed, you can spin a wind generator manually and charge batteries. (Go ahead, ask me how I know).
Ben, an EPIRB, even in the sticks, if it's continuously going off, will get something out to look at it in a reasonable time frame.
If the RCC (rescue coordination center) can't get a local .gov out there, they'll ask commercial shipping to swing by, or ping the big countries to see if there's a .mil asset nearby. I've been diverted twice for that. No one really says no to a "Can you go check this EPIRB?" request.
I'm going to say they didn't trigger one. If they had, someone would have gone looking, and we'd be talking about the failed search.
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I would have gone with clueless right off the bat, but like I said, the food and the desalinator* threw me. You know enough and are prepped enough to get a desalinator, but not enough to get an EPIRB - even just a personal EPIRB? Even the cheapest desalinators cost more than an average EPIRB. Perplexing.
* I am assuming the reporters meant desalinator when they said "water purifier". Otherwise that boat had a few pallets of bottled water onboard. :laugh:
Pretty good odds the water maker came with the boat. Most midrange units have a manual pump mode.
I'd still like to hear the whole story.
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I would have gone with clueless right off the bat, but like I said, the food and the desalinator* threw me. You know enough and are prepped enough to get a desalinator, but not enough to get an EPIRB - even just a personal EPIRB? Even the cheapest desalinators cost more than an average EPIRB. Perplexing.
Not sure what the actual reliability of an EPIRB itself is; doesn't matter how good the system is if your transmitter's broke. Not having an HF radio on a sailboat seems kind of odd to me; you've got the perfect place to string a pretty big antenna, but maybe they hadn't previously been concerned with long range comms.
Food doesn't seem all that unusual if one or both of them lived on the boat. Could be they island-hopped Hawaii from time to time, and lived on the boat at various ports; bulk purchased storable foods are a fairly cheap way to "camp" while out sightseeing, and why not store all the extra on the boat?
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Even my 40 year old ketch has provisions to use the triatic stay (cable between main and mizzen masts) as an HF antenna. Currently only has a VHF installed. Also SSB is pretty popular among cruisers these days.
I'm betting these two were pretty new to sailing and really didn't know what the hell they were doing.
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They apparently also didn't have very good navigation equipment. They were found thousands of miles from where they wanted to go. GPS failed? If I were planning a long ocean voyage like that, I think I would at least buy a basic sextant and take a course in basic celestial navigation as a backup to electronics. Dead reckoning can only take you so far ...
The easiest thing would be a secondary GPS. Hell even just some general awareness....having an idea which direction to sail to the closest continent. Which would probably just mean going E from where they were.
For once I agree with Joe....
If they lived on the boat they were probably prepared with food already, probably were able to fish a little, and the desalinator is pretty common on ocean going sail boats, especially liveaboards.
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900 miles southeast of Japan during the peak of hurricane season. They got lucky.
Hurricanes in the western Pacific ocean this year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Pacific_typhoon_season#/media/File:2017_Pacific_typhoon_season_summary.png
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Pretty good odds the water maker came with the boat. Most midrange units have a manual pump mode.
I did not know that. All the bigger boats, around 50' and up I was on at work had a built-in system, but I wouldn't have expected that, even a manual system, on the average sailboat.
On the food, obviously we can only go by what is reported, but a year's worth of food seems like something you plan for, not just have on hand because you're living on the boat. That's a lot of space to take up if you're just hanging out at the harbor or one of the other Hawaiian islands harbors, where food and drink are plentiful.
It will certainly be interesting to get the whole backstory here.
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If they each had a smartphone, they had at least two spare GPS units. Not sure what their battery charging capability was once the engine died. If they skipped getting an EPIRB, they may have blown off getting a solar charger or similar.
I have a GPS for my car, so I keep GPS turned off on my cell phone for whatever minimal level of privacy that offers. So I've never looked at it. Does it give the position as latitude and longitude, or as street address?
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I have a GPS for my car, so I keep GPS turned off on my cell phone for whatever minimal level of privacy that offers. So I've never looked at it. Does it give the position as latitude and longitude, or as street address?
Lat/long. Tons of apps, including free, so there would be no excuse for them not to have something on their phones. I used to keep the Navionics West Coast charting app on my phone at work so I wouldn't have to bug the boat driver all the time when I was working in the aft lab on one our smaller boats that didn't have mirrored nav monitors in the back. It gave much of the same info he had up front, so he didn't have to listen to me ask, "Are we there yet?" every five minutes. :laugh:
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/28/rescued-women-sailors-not-properly-prepared-hawaii-tahiti
Appel, who has been sailing the Hawaiian islands for a decade, said she had planned the voyage, which should take three weeks, for more than two years but that the pair were perhaps not as prepared as they should have been.
Yup; island hopper who had never needed more navigation than could be done with binoculars and a compass. Accompanied by someone who had never sailed at all.
Still, that's pretty pathetically unprepared for someone who planned "for more than two years."
I mean, really; I packed a spare chain, three tubes and a tire, plus a moderate set of tools, spare phone batteries and extra phone with no service but an offline nav app for a ~70 mile ride on familiar roads. I can't imagine going out in the Pacific without at least three completely independent nav methods accurate enough to hit an 80 mile wide island, (Boat's GPS, plus a handheld with spare alkaline batteries, plus a low-end-but-reliable-and-accurate sextant like a Davis Mk 25 and all necessary charts, though even a $50 Mk 3 should be able to get you to Fiji easily - if someone on board knows how to use it. Now that I think about it, hopping Hawaii, she might not have even had a clue how to do basic course plotting.) plus at least two completely independent medium-to-long-range communication methods. (And I wouldn't really count an EPIRB as a "communication method" since it's purely one-way, but I'd certainly carry one. I'm thinking at least the boat's regular transceiver, plus one of the portable HF rigs with self-contained power and a wire antenna stowed in a waterproof, floating case until needed.)
And shark attacks? With nothing better to do and really nothing to lose, improvise a harpoon. At least injuring one shark will give the others something else to attack, and you just might get yourself a week's worth of meat.
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I'm still not sure how accurately this is being reported.
Given the Guardian link though, the broken mast would explain the great course drift. I continue to be perplexed regarding preps. They consulted with veteran sailors who told them to stock up on food, but again, nobody mentioned any kind of comms, not even just a personal EPIRB? I'm not a veteran sailor, but EPIRBs, sat phones, etc. seem like one of those "common knowledge" things at this point in time, let alone knowledge for anyone who travels out of sight of land. I think USCG even has that kind of stuff in their boating primers. I'd be curious to know if the more experienced of the two had ever taken a USCG boating course.
They are again using the term "water purifier", only this article says that it "broke". I am curious for how long and how much bottled water they had with them. Maybe they were catching rainwater. Given other stuff that happened, I question their ability to repair a desalinator. Perhaps broken wasn't broken (PEBDAS*). Also, "food ran low"? I thought they had enough for a year? Even after the dog food ran out, they should have still had several months at time of rescue.
At any rate, I continue to be interested in new and hopefully more accurate information that comes out on the incident.
*Problem Exists Between Desalinator And Sailor
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Too many unanswered questions to form a worthwhile opinion.
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The available images don't show a broken mast. The boat is (was?) a sloop, and the mast is still there and upright. They may have broken a shroud -- those are typically at least doubled, or tripled, on a boat that size. If they had lost either forestay or the aft stay the mast probably would not still be up. So I don't understand why they couldn't have hoisted at least the mainsail to a reefed or double-reefed position and had at least steerage way.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fa.abcnews.com%2Fimages%2FInternational%2Fnavy-rescue-01-ht-jef-171026_4x3_992.jpg&hash=69365cb64988c3f3faceb2827623907b9571e76f)
I also can't imagine heading off on a voyage like that without a storm jib (very small) and a storm trisail (a small mainsail). When I was in high school I crewed on a 42-foot yawl that mostly just cruised around Long Island Sound and as far north and east as Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and we had a storm jib and a storm trisail in the forward sail locker. They were never used while I was on the boat, but they were there.
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My assessment of these two intrepid voyagers is still "clueless".
Still haven't heard a decent accounting of events and probably won't till the rescuees return home.
I wonder how much they'll score off the book and film rights?
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Lat/long. Tons of apps, including free, so there would be no excuse for them not to have something on their phones. I used to keep the Navionics West Coast charting app on my phone at work so I wouldn't have to bug the boat driver all the time when I was working in the aft lab on one our smaller boats that didn't have mirrored nav monitors in the back. It gave much of the same info he had up front, so he didn't have to listen to me ask, "Are we there yet?" every five minutes. :laugh:
Not all phone GPS systems will work outside of cellular coverage because they offload a chunk of the processing to the tower to do.
But yeah, in this day and age NOT having a long range radio and backup for it seems odd. Even the systems intended for hikers who get into trouble will get a sea rescue into the proper spot easily, and aren't that expensive.
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But yeah, in this day and age NOT having a long range radio and backup for it seems odd. Even the systems intended for hikers who get into trouble will get a sea rescue into the proper spot easily, and aren't that expensive.
What's the acronym for those hiker-oriented systems? IIRC, technically EPIRB refers to the ones that are intended for use on watercraft and life jackets.
[Edit] Never mind, I found it: PLB (Personal Locator Beacon). https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/personal-locator-beacons.html
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FWIW, EPIRBS are pretty affordable. Your basic 406Mhz EPIRB w/ Hydrostatic release goes for about $400-$600. You want the 406 Cat II versions because they have built in GPS and transmit your Lat/Lon as well as the ID signal, and have a 121.5 DF'ing beacon for airplanes to find you. (121.5 is the aviation ELT freq.) So there's no real reason NOT to have one if you are doing any kind of medium to long crossing. (2000NM of pacific counts as long)
Reliable SATCOM systems on the other hand can get cost prohibitive pretty quickly. Satphones are still over a grand with expensive airtime that expires. On a boat, you'd want an INMARSAT C system, which will run you a couple grand in hardware plus recurring account fees. It can get cost prohibitive for small boaters in a hurry.
MF/HF radios (of which SSB is a subset) are cheaper, in that there aren't monthly fees and the equipment is a little cheaper, but it can be tricky to get signals to the folks you are trying to get. You've got to do an atmosphere bounce, and likely will need a pretty decent amp. I don't use ours very often, but when I do I need to pull out my book to remind me which freqs are likely to work for prevailing atmospherics, and what level of signal strength I need. I have a 1000W amp on our boat as well. With all that, and calling someone on a sat phone to tell them to listen, I get useful communication about 75% of the time when calling over 500nm. It's easy to imagine someone that hadn't tried it much would have a hard time getting help. Newer MF/HF equipment pulls your lat/long from your GPS and has a big red "distress" button on the front, and will automate at least some of that by broadcasting automated distress messages on all the distress freqs. It still requires someone to hear it, and either respond or relay it.
TL/DR: There are actually a ton of smaller boats that cruise around out there without really solid coms back to land. Really reliable coms from the middle of the ocean is still pretty expensive.
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Reliable SATCOM systems on the other hand can get cost prohibitive pretty quickly. Satphones are still over a grand with expensive airtime that expires. On a boat, you'd want an INMARSAT C system, which will run you a couple grand in hardware plus recurring account fees. It can get cost prohibitive for small boaters in a hurry.
I recall we rented them from time to time when ours went on the fritz. It wasn't really cheap either, but a viable option for someone who couldn't afford to buy a system. Not that either of these people would have known about that.
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Not all phone GPS systems will work outside of cellular coverage because they offload a chunk of the processing to the tower to do.
Mine works fine in the middle of the Sierras and the desert with zero cell signal. The only thing I've ever noticed, watching the GPS status app, is a longer time to lock onto sats.
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FWIW, EPIRBS are pretty affordable. Your basic 406Mhz EPIRB w/ Hydrostatic release goes for about $400-$600. You want the 406 Cat II versions because they have built in GPS and transmit your Lat/Lon as well as the ID signal, and have a 121.5 DF'ing beacon for airplanes to find you. (121.5 is the aviation ELT freq.) So there's no real reason NOT to have one if you are doing any kind of medium to long crossing. (2000NM of pacific counts as long)
IMO, even after, or if, all the information and backstory on this comes out, the EPIRB will be the "lowest common denominator" mistake. Of all the things they could have bought, or saved money on, or reallocated fiscal resources for, not having the EPIRB will be the major mistake.
Even for nearshore, I'll say they're vital. Back in 2000, we had a 56 footer capsize while pulling a sidescan fish <1/2 mile off Vandenberg AFB. It was a weekend and we would have not known for likely half a day that they capsized had it not been for the EPIRB. Boat flipped and filled with water immediately. the crew barely made it out alive.
Edit: less than, not more than.
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But yeah, in this day and age NOT having a long range radio and backup for it seems odd. Even the systems intended for hikers who get into trouble will get a sea rescue into the proper spot easily, and aren't that expensive.
My tolerance for "it's too expensive" gets lower every time I run across another story excoriating Best Buy for charging an extra $100 for preorders on the $1100 newest iPhone. $15 for a ham license fee, pass Tech and General at the same sitting (or pay another $15 for another session) then anywhere from $200 for a used single-band 40m, or dual 20/40m if you're lucky, to $2000 for a high-end brand new all-band HF rig. Maybe it's not guaranteed reliable 24x7, but 40m is solid enough even with a simple wire antenna that you're not going to be drifting around for 99 days trying to get a response. And of course, your response may be from some random guy in Iceland, but anybody with a phone can relay a message for you. Heck, there have been a lot of very successful DXpeditions to Tristan da Cunha running only on 20m, and it doesn't get any more middle of nowhere than that.
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Are you contractually obligated to never go more than 1 week without making a post of detailed BS about a subject you have no knowledge of?
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Reliable SATCOM systems on the other hand can get cost prohibitive pretty quickly. Satphones are still over a grand with expensive airtime that expires. On a boat, you'd want an INMARSAT C system, which will run you a couple grand in hardware plus recurring account fees. It can get cost prohibitive for small boaters in a hurry.
What about the Garmin InReach (https://explore.garmin.com/en-US/inreach/) (formerly from Delorme)? It's text messaging rather than voice, but it is 2 way comms, and uses the Iridium network of satellites.
Under $500 new, and around $12-100/month depending on if you get the annual contract or go month to month, and the level of messaging included.
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Here is one of the intrepid mariners
http://hawaiifilmindustry.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=0t4bwknjr36la&xg_source=activity (http://hawaiifilmindustry.com/photo/photo/listForContributor?screenName=0t4bwknjr36la&xg_source=activity)
Also seeing reports that they had an emergency locater of some sort that they never activated.
Book deal and movie rights in 5...4...3...
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What about the Garmin InReach (https://explore.garmin.com/en-US/inreach/) (formerly from Delorme)? It's text messaging rather than voice, but it is 2 way comms, and uses the Iridium network of satellites.
Under $500 new, and around $12-100/month depending on if you get the annual contract or go month to month, and the level of messaging included.
More expensive than a PLB or entry-level EPIRB, and is NOT monitored by NOAA, the Air Force, or any search & rescue groups. What it does is allow you to send a text message. Then -- if the person receives the message -- they have to contact someone to get an official report entered and start the search process. If you don't know where you are ... that's a problem. By contrast, both the EPIRB and the GPS-enabled PLB sends on a frequency monitored by NOAA, the Air Force, and (I think) the militaries of a number of other nations. I would much prefer the EPIRB or PLB rather than the satellite message unit.
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Ah the old "let me pull some weird *expletive deleted*it out of my butt and post is as if it's a great idea"....
Well, if you must. Done yet?
Oh look; new info:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/women-rescued-voyage-bad-worse-50753606
They also had a new VHF radio, a ham radio, a weather satellite and a radio telephone. She says none worked, and they apparently had a communications failure with their new antenna.
They even carried a satellite phone that she said never seemed to connect.
She says they had six ways to communicate with multiple backups, and none of them worked. That, she said, "exceeds Murphy's Law."
Yeah, way past Murphy's Law, unless they all got soaked in saltwater, (and anything handheld should either be waterproof or kept in a waterproof case or at least a dry bag when not in use, but I guess her (former) cell phone is proof that concept is alien to her) but well within the realm of "maybe you should learn to use the stuff before you need it." At any rate, there aren't any licenses issued (current or expired) for anyone named Fuiava, and the only Appel listed in Hawaii is a 60-something guy with a Santa Claus beard on Kauai, (and no Jennifer Appel anywhere, so it's not just a matter of failing to update the address) so safe bet neither of them have any actual practice with whatever ham radio they took. (And I'd give pretty good odds it was a cheap VHF and/or UHF handheld or mobile with no better range than the marine VHF. Can't count the number of people who have come to me or my old roommate to show them how to use the converted business band radio they picked up for $50 at the flea market or the Baofeng handheld off Amazon for $35 "for emergencies" without a license or a clue as to what emergency communications will be like if there's ever a situation that takes out the cell towers. It's right up there with the people who buy a $600+ field hospital kit for the bugout pile but never find the time to take even a basic first aid class.)
More expensive than a PLB or entry-level EPIRB, and is NOT monitored by NOAA, the Air Force, or any search & rescue groups. What it does is allow you to send a text message. Then -- if the person receives the message -- they have to contact someone to get an official report entered and start the search process. If you don't know where you are ... that's a problem. By contrast, both the EPIRB and the GPS-enabled PLB sends on a frequency monitored by NOAA, the Air Force, and (I think) the militaries of a number of other nations. I would much prefer the EPIRB or PLB rather than the satellite message unit.
Yeah; definitely not the time to be stuck with something proprietary. USCG is good about acting on any even remotely usable information, (and impressive at getting it relayed to the right places if they have enough information to determine where that is) but if you're days from your last reliably known position, all the recipient will be able to tell them is "somewhere on the blue part of the globe."
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More expensive than a PLB or entry-level EPIRB, and is NOT monitored by NOAA, the Air Force, or any search & rescue groups. What it does is allow you to send a text message. Then -- if the person receives the message -- they have to contact someone to get an official report entered and start the search process. If you don't know where you are ... that's a problem. By contrast, both the EPIRB and the GPS-enabled PLB sends on a frequency monitored by NOAA, the Air Force, and (I think) the militaries of a number of other nations. I would much prefer the EPIRB or PLB rather than the satellite message unit.
Not correct. The Garmin InReach has an "I've fallen and can't get up" button. It will also send your GPS coordinates just like a SPOT PLB, or EPIRB. With every text message.
If you hit the SOS button, you get 2-way text communication with a person at GEOS, the same org that processes signals form SPOT and EPIRBs. But, with SPOT and EPIRBs you have no way of knowing if the message was received until rescuers actually show up. The InReach will give you confirmation and the person on the end will also let them give advice and allow you to advise on medical issues so the rescue folks are better prepared to help you. It will also continually update your position (as long as the unit is able to transmit) until the rescuers arrive. So even if you're drifting quickly (like in the OP), and it takes a while for the USCG to get to you they'll be able to know where you are (or were in the last 2-10 minutes).
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If you hit the SOS button, you get 2-way text communication with a person at GEOS, the same org that processes signals form SPOT and EPIRBs. But, with SPOT and EPIRBs you have no way of knowing if the message was received until rescuers actually show up. The InReach will give you confirmation and the person on the end will also let them give advice and allow you to advise on medical issues so the rescue folks are better prepared to help you. It will also continually update your position (as long as the unit is able to transmit) until the rescuers arrive. So even if you're drifting quickly (like in the OP), and it takes a while for the USCG to get to you they'll be able to know where you are (or were in the last 2-10 minutes).
Aha. I sit corrected. Thanks.
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Don't pass the smell test, getting fishier by the day...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sailors-rescued-after-months-sea-didn-t-activate-emergency-beacon-n815876 (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sailors-rescued-after-months-sea-didn-t-activate-emergency-beacon-n815876)
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https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/apnewsbreak-lost-sailors-did-not-activate-emergency-beacon/
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Idiots being idiotic.
The blond woman has crazy in her blood.
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http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/31/sailors-lost-at-sea-for-5-months-never-activated-emergency-beacon.html
“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.
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And more:
Carr also said the Coast Guard made radio contact with a vessel that identified itself as the Sea Nymph in June near Tahiti, and the captain said they were not in distress and expected to make land the next morning. That was after the women reportedly lost their engines and sustained damage to their rigging and mast.
Looks like RKL called it on the book deal.
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Starting to sound like their story is gonna unravel faster than cheap Chinese sweater.
Sad thing is, a couple of women sailing to Tahiti and knocking about the South Pacific in a sailboat could probably be made into a decent book/movie without the BS lies. Now I suspect that if they did fake any of it they will be shamed in the sailor world and have to fall back on blaming Trump for all their misfortune.
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Sad thing is, a couple of women sailing to Tahiti and knocking about the South Pacific in a sailboat could probably be made into a decent book/movie without the BS lies. Now I suspect that if they did fake any of it they will be shamed in the sailor world and have to fall back on blaming Trump for all their misfortune.
Still a better love story than Twilight.
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Starting to sound like their story is gonna unravel faster than cheap Chinese sweater.
Maybe they were taking lessons from Norwegian submariners.
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A few more interesting points:
The "force 11" storm they endured did not exist according to NOAA and NASA data.
A cell phone fell overboard in the nonexistent storm.
They thought about turning around after the nonexistent storm and heading to Maui, but Maui doesn't have a harbor deep enough for their boat. Maui. ;/
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/sailors-lost-at-sea-didnt-use-emergency-beacon-rescue-us-coast-guard/
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RKL said:
"Now I suspect that if they did fake any of it they will be shamed in the sailor world and have to fall back on blaming Trump for all their misfortune."
:rofl:
This whole thing started to sound hokier and hoaxier as time went on.
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Did they also see D.B. Cooper jump out of a Malaysian Airlines jet, which was piloted by Amelia Earhart ?
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A few more interesting points:
The "force 11" storm they endured did not exist according to NOAA and NASA data.
A cell phone fell overboard in the nonexistent storm.
They thought about turning around after the nonexistent storm and heading to Maui, but Maui doesn't have a harbor deep enough for their boat. Maui. ;/
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/sailors-lost-at-sea-didnt-use-emergency-beacon-rescue-us-coast-guard/
They also were able to hail people on Wake but they wouldn't come out and get them because they were on the wrong side of the island. Hmmmm, let's think about this, a vessel in distress, 2 miles away from you but you won't render assistance because they are on the wrong side of the island. Oh yea, that rings true. ;/
"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," Appel said. "And they responded. 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."
bob
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It seems as phony as Tom Steyer’s impeach Trump petition.
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Here's some good reading about the intrepid mariners, commentary from some real sailors-
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?/topic/194198-two-sailors-and-dogs-rescued-after-5-months/&tab=comments#comment-5967131 (http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?/topic/194198-two-sailors-and-dogs-rescued-after-5-months/&tab=comments#comment-5967131)
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Now there is a version where it wasn't the cell phone, but the sat phone that immediately fell overboard. Also coordinated attacks by 30' tiger sharks (Sharknado!). It's all actually becoming entertaining at this point.
My big take away at the end of all this will be, "poor dogs".
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/11/01/hawaii-womens-tale-survival-at-sea-unraveling-as-more-evidence-disputes-claims.html
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Now there is a version where it wasn't the cell phone, but the sat phone that immediately fell overboard. Also coordinated attacks by 30' tiger sharks (Sharknado!). It's all actually becoming entertaining at this point.
My big take away at the end of all this will be, "poor dogs".
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/11/01/hawaii-womens-tale-survival-at-sea-unraveling-as-more-evidence-disputes-claims.html
Much crazy going on. I'm in the "bucking for a book deal/tv movie" camp. These girls are full of *expletive deleted*it.
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Much crazy going on. I'm in the "bucking for a book deal/tv movie" camp. These girls are full of *expletive deleted*it.
If you correlate all the known information as related by the women at this point and put it in chronological order, it's pretty much the script of a SyFy network disaster movie.
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If you correlate all the known information as related by the women at this point and put it in chronological order, it's pretty much the script of a SyFy network disaster movie.
Nah; it still lacks a Burt Gummer type character giving them distasteful-yet-correct advice that they completely ignore no matter how many times he's proven right.
OTOH, I guess they're lucky they didn't get run over by a USN destroyer late at night.
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I keep thinking their newly-developed Plan B is for one of them to spill the beans in a book deal about planning the hoax (blaming the other), the two are then outwardly furious at each other, but secretly split the book proceeds.
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Nah; it still lacks a Burt Gummer type character giving them distasteful-yet-correct advice that they completely ignore no matter how many times he's proven right.
OTOH, I guess they're lucky they didn't get run over by a USN destroyer late at night.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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They also were able to hail people on Wake but they wouldn't come out and get them because they were on the wrong side of the island. Hmmmm, let's think about this, a vessel in distress, 2 miles away from you but you won't render assistance because they are on the wrong side of the island. Oh yea, that rings true. ;/
bob
Had to pass on Guam too, as they didn't want to tip it over.
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The story continues to evolve. When the story broke, the versions I read were that a Taiwanese fishing boat called the Coast Guard, initiating the rescue. Appel's version now is that the Taiwanese fishing boat tried to kill them (but then allowed her on board to use their sat phone to call the Coast Guard).
http://www.newser.com/story/251319/women-lost-at-sea-actually-fishing-vessel-tried-to-kill-us.html
http://time.com/5015057/women-lost-at-sea-tough-questions/
I am commencing to think that Ms. Appel is a few bricks short of a load.
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I am commencing to think that Ms. Appel is a few bricks short of a load.
Not trying to be mean, and keeping the aPs ideals in mind, I still have to say that you can pretty much tell that just by looking at her.
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Not trying to be mean, and keeping the aPs ideals in mind, I still have to say that you can pretty much tell that just by looking at her.
Either I'm that much older than you are, or my eyesight is worse than I thought. Looking at her web site, I thought she was a pretty good-looking woman.
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I kinda thought "she" might be a trans. ...
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http://gcaptain.com/watch-lost-at-sea-sailors-attempt-to-clear-the-air-on-story Wow, those ladies. Sorry if this is a duplicate.
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http://gcaptain.com/watch-lost-at-sea-sailors-attempt-to-clear-the-air-on-story Wow, those ladies. Sorry if this is a duplicate.
That woman is more full of *expletive deleted*it than a Christmas turkey.
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She's digging in on the bullshit shark story. And those pictures she took....6' sharks at most.
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So lemme get this straight - the taiwanese were trying to kill them, so she uses a surfboard to get to and board said taiwanese boat in order to use their sat phone to call the coasties, because the epirb would have alerted the taiwanese to her intent. Cray-cray.
Also, again, bad movie plot.
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So lemme get this straight - the taiwanese were trying to kill them, so she uses a surfboard to get to and board said taiwanese boat in order to use their sat phone to call the coasties, because the epirb would have alerted the taiwanese to her intent. Cray-cray.
Also, again, bad movie plot.
Let us not forget that they would have been dead within 24 hours if the Navy hadn't rescued them -- but they weren't in sufficient danger to activate the EPIRB.
I don't get the surfboard part. I've never cruised on a 50-foot sailboat, but I have owned a 30-footer and crewed on a 45-foot offshore sailboat, and I used to go to multiple sailboat shows every year to ogle the boats I'd never be able to afford. I cannot imagine bringing a surfboard on a sailboat that size for an extended cruise.
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I like to learn something every day, and in looking at the articles about this, I have a question about the watermaker. Especially for the size that you would carry on a sailboat, does this work via distillation or an osmotic membrane filter?
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I don't get the surfboard part. I've never cruised on a 50-foot sailboat, but I have owned a 30-footer and crewed on a 45-foot offshore sailboat, and I used to go to multiple sailboat shows every year to ogle the boats I'd never be able to afford. I cannot imagine bringing a surfboard on a sailboat that size for an extended cruise.
Surfboards/kayaks are actually pretty common. In Santa Barbara, there were fewer boats without those on board than with. All the urchin divers, lobster guys, etc. would bring their boards on the little 22'-29' Radons that are so popular there. That was 2-4 boards per boat. Sailboats have a bit less deck room, but even stuff like the Catalina 25s would have a surfboard or kayak tied down somewhere.
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Let us not forget that they would have been dead within 24 hours if the Navy hadn't rescued them -- but they weren't in sufficient danger to activate the EPIRB.
I don't get the surfboard part. I've never cruised on a 50-foot sailboat, but I have owned a 30-footer and crewed on a 45-foot offshore sailboat, and I used to go to multiple sailboat shows every year to ogle the boats I'd never be able to afford. I cannot imagine bringing a surfboard on a sailboat that size for an extended cruise.
I see a lot of stand up paddle boards on the boats at the lake as well as smaller kayaks. I've even strapped my little 12' kayak to the life lines and put it in the water during a raft up.
Kind of a light duty tender/dinghy.
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I guess my age is showing (again).
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It is a fairly recent trend.
:old:
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5063707/Bungling-yachtswoman-kinky-sailor-dominatrix.html
[popcorn]
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I like to learn something every day, and in looking at the articles about this, I have a question about the watermaker. Especially for the size that you would carry on a sailboat, does this work via distillation or an osmotic membrane filter?
Probably an RO on that size boat.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5063707/Bungling-yachtswoman-kinky-sailor-dominatrix.html
[popcorn]
Dominatrix...she has been beaten by the ugly stick or that Adam's apple is too small.
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Dominatrix...she has been beaten by the ugly stick or that Adam's apple is too small.
A real butter face. Or a man. Hard to say.
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Surfboards/kayaks are actually pretty common. In Santa Barbara, there were fewer boats without those on board than with. All the urchin divers, lobster guys, etc. would bring their boards on the little 22'-29' Radons that are so popular there. That was 2-4 boards per boat. Sailboats have a bit less deck room, but even stuff like the Catalina 25s would have a surfboard or kayak tied down somewhere.
Yup. My buddy out here has a kayak and paddleboard on the bow of his 35' cabo sportfish.
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Either I'm that much older than you are, or my eyesight is worse than I thought. Looking at her web site, I thought she was a pretty good-looking woman.
In looking at this picture, with no regard to attractiveness or lack of same, can you really say you would trust anything that she says?
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.dailymail.co.uk%2Fi%2Fpix%2F2017%2F11%2F08%2F21%2F4622B8F300000578-5063707-image-a-42_1510175800892.jpg&hash=731bfa607b87e8c3fc21b57a3c920c511a90880e)
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Is that an old pic of micheal Jackson and Barbara Streisand?