Plight of rescued sailors called into question

OKINAWA, Japan (NBCNC) – The U.S. Coast Guard says the two Hawaii women who were lost at sea for five months had an emergency beacon aboard their sailboat that was never activated. Now parts of their story have been called into question, including the tropical storm the two say they encountered on their first night at sea in May.

Jennifer Appel, Tasha Fuiava and their dogs–Valentine and Zeus–arrived in Japan after saying they had drifted helplessly in the Pacific for five months.

Appel said, “Had they not been able to locate us we would have been dead in 24 hours.”

But now, the U.S Coast Guard says the women never activated their emergency beacon.

In a statement to NBC News overnight, Appel admits that the pair “did not activate the beacon,” writing: “We were in distress but were floating, had water and food and limited maneuverability and felt that the beacon should only be activated if we were in imminent danger… looking back we should have activated it sooner.”

The women set sail from Honolulu on May 3 heading for Tahiti, but say that a storm on May 30th swamped their engine and broke their mast.

Their ship, the Sea Nyph, was picked up on October 24 900 miles southeast of japan.

But the Coast Guard says it made contact with the Sea Nyph in June near Tahiti, the captain saying they were not in distress and expected to make land the next morning.

Appel responded to that report telling NBC News: “We never got near Tahiti (our GPS track proves that)”.

And as for those devastating storms at the start of their voyage? The National Weather Service in Honolulu now says there were no storm systems in or around Hawaii at that time.

The women said they had six forms of communications on board including satellite phones and radios, all of them went dead. In her statement to NBC News, Jennifer Appel said that once the boat is recovered anyone would be able to check the details of her story and they’ll see for themselves she says that none of the communications worked.