I have limited sailing experience with my family as a child and this story had my BS detectors on alert when I saw how happy/healthy they were, their story of all the comms being disabled and the ridiculous story about having to huddle and be quiet because of sharks or something.
Once I heard the account of the EPIRB (which I totally forgot about) I knew there it was more than just back luck and some hamming up the story for the camera.
This article does a pretty thorough and entertaining job of breaking down all the inconsistencies from the perspective of an experienced sailor. My dad is going to thoroughly enjoy it.
EPIRB is a fantastic technology, saving thousands of people at sea every year. A modern beacon will do a quarter second burst of digital information at 406 MHz at five watts (which is a helluva lot) then becomes silent for about 50 seconds. Today it is precise enough that only about two square kilometres needs to be searched. Fun fact: the 50 seconds is randomized so that two beacons don't become sync'd. A real lot of thought went into creating the protocol. As for the devices, the author was only half kidding about them surviving a nuclear war. Once deployed it's less tough but their brackets (which most autodeploy from if it gets four metres deep) definitely survives some real bad stuff although I can't find hard data on how they are tested.
I know I'm nitpicking, but... 5 watts isn't a "helluva lot". Consumer WiFi can transmit up to 1 watt. Entry-level ham radio operators can transmit up to 5 watts. If you put a 5 watt transmitter at 406 MHz inside your house, it's possible the signal might not even be strong enough to be received outside, depending on what the walls are made of.
Now, consumer radio/television broadcasts... those run in the 10-100 kilowatt range. That's a "helluva lot".
From right here, in my office in my home in the middle of a town, I can easily communicate via a 440 MHz repeater about eight miles away with a handheld radio (with a little stubby antenna on it) that is putting out about one watt.
You need to get much higher up in the spectrum before you have to worry about your signal not passing through walls.
To illustrate, mobile phones typically operate in the 800-900 and/or 1800-1900 MHz range and typically put out ~0.6 watts. Most people have no problems whatsoever using their cell phones from inside their homes.
5 watts on 406 MHz out in the middle of an empty ocean is certainly more than enough to be picked up by a satellite passing overhead.
Last, "entry-level ham radio operators" are permitted 1500 watts (on the frequency bands we're discussing; the limit is a very reasonable 100 watts on the lower/HF bands).
(If you insist on "nitpicking", you should at least make sure you're accurate.)
I worked at Trimble Nav in the radio group. 5W for a consumer device is on the high end. UHF base stations often do around 25W-50W+ for wide-area coverage on top of a tower. If you did like a coworker did with a YAGI antenna and accidentally place a base-station onto high-power mode, nearby flesh (<10cm) will receive a significant radio burn.
Unless you're living in a reinforce concrete bunker with no windows - like a bomb shelter - 5w is good for about a mile or so - considering that the beacons go skyward, its worth even more.
All comms being disabled is a real red flag. My dad’s a master mariner so I’ve been around enough marine grade equipment to know that one radio breaking is rare, but 6 all at the same time is ridiculously unlikely. Either total incompetence or someone’s lying.
I have zero experience but I was skeptical from the second I first read it too. I do have a good friend who sails, and we've been chatting about it. Seems most of the sailing forums are in agreement that something here Is Not Right(tm).
Elaborated lies often show a glimpse of truth shinning through. The sharks history is interesting if we take it as a metaphore.
The history makes more sense if you change "sharks" for "Human sharks". Real sharks never train their sharklings, they'll try to eat them instead. "Sharks are training their kids with us" would be a revealing phrase in this sense about the women knowing the identity of their expected persecutor, probably young or middle aged, that could be closer of the ship and would scan for any electronic help emission (to reach the area and take drastic measures or even sink the ship before the arrival of other external help).
Why to shut all electronic emissions if you are lost at open water?; maybe because you know that you are being hunted and try to hide at sea.
Why to deliberately avoid nearest ports and inhabited areas?; because you know they are surveilled. You will be detected if try to approach to the nearest islands.
They planned the travel with some months in antelation, maybe because you can't buy a huge amount of food in a single take without being suspicious and reported.
Maybe for some places of the world, the quantity of food needed in a ship should be measured as: food needed to escape from the influence area of the local smuggler lord in charge and reach a safe airport or continent.
The position of ships in the sea are continuously registered by electronic emissions. If authorities can take a look to this data in the first days after the ship quitting the port, could even have a list of hypothetical hunters.
A correction on the radio terminology used in the article... SSB (Single Sideband) is a modulation system, not a frequency range like VHF (Very High Frequency). SSB is a variation of AM (Amplitude Modulation). If you look at the frequency spectrum of an AM signal, you will see a peak in the middle – the carrier frequency – and two “sidebands” above and below the carrier that have the actual signal. Each sideband is a mirror image of the other.
This fairly inefficient since most of the transmitter power goes into the carrier frequency, and the power that goes into the sidebands is duplicated for each. A Single Sideband transmitter removes the carrier frequency and one of the sidebands, and then the receiver adds the carrier back in to demodulate the signal.
The reason the SSB radio can bounce signals off the ionosphere is not because it’s SSB, but because it operates in the HF (High Frequency) range. But any modulation system could do this just as well as SSB – it’s the frequency range that makes the difference. Hams, for example, often use CW (Continuous Wave, aka Morse Code) in the HF range, and a few even use AM.
The VHF radio happens to use FM (Frequency Modulation), just like an FM radio station but with a narrower bandwidth. But again, whether it uses FM or SSB is not what determines whether the radio only works line of sight or could also work over the horizon, it’s the frequency range.
This is similar to how AM radio stations can transmit much farther than FM stations, especially at night. It isn’t because one is AM and the other is FM, it’s because AM stations operate in a much lower frequency range.
(I tried to post this comment on the article page itself but had trouble with the commenting system...)
You are correct about the physics of the radio modulation systems and frequencies, but I think that the article is quoting folks that are talking about common conventions of where SSB is likely to be used over AM.
That is true, and if the article is any indication, it sounds like the marine community uses "SSB" to mean "an HF radio with SSB", and "VHF" to mean "a VHF radio with FM".
A bit like the way the ham community uses "CW" and "Morse code" somewhat interchangeably, even though as scoot pointed out they are not the same thing.
In fact, the ICOM IC-M700PRO shown in the article bills itself as an "SSB Radio Telephone", but it also supports other modes including AM, CW, and FSK (frequency shift keying).
(Note that where the specifications mention USB, they are not talking about Universal Serial Bus. They refer to Upper Sideband. Since there are two sidebands for every AM signal, when you use Single Sideband you have to pick which one you want to use - the upper sideband, USB - or the lower sideband, LSB. This radio only supports upper sideband, not lower. Ham radios use either one depending on the convention for the ham band you're using.)
But still, the article really conflates SSB modulation with the HF frequency range:
"[Ham radio] covers a broader array of wavelengths than SSB..."
"...they’re both using SSB frequencies..."
It's not a big deal, and obviously the author knows far more about sailing than I do. But the article specifically calls out propagation differences for different kinds of radios, and it's worth knowing the actual reason for those differences.
> it sounds like the marine community uses "SSB" to mean "an HF radio with SSB", and "VHF" to mean "a VHF radio with FM".
It's a little bit more specific than that. ITU has specific frequency allocations for maritime use that imply several of those details that are not explicitly stated when a sailor refers to his VHF radio, and GMDSS standards also help dictate what kind of equipment and features are expected for different bands.
I think the important facts are that certain frequencies bounce off the ionosphere and others do not. And that 5W (arbitrarily) of power put into the antenna by an SSB radio will have much more modulation power than 5W put into an AM signal where the carrier is present.
A correction on sharks: not that many of them lay eggs and do a runner. Most shark varieties have the eggs develop in the womb, sometimes with a 'cord' and sometimes not. In the latter type there is the small matter of oophagy.
Here they have many, many baby sharks inside their womb and the baby sharks eat each other until only one baby shark is left. This shark has murdered scores of its siblings before it emerges into the world hungry.
I think it's pretty well accepted that the story doesn't hold up. The real question is what were they really doing. Reminds me of some teenagers that get pulled over by a cop and then tell some elaborate story about why they were speeding, who they were fleeing from, etc. Just forget their story entirely and look for evidence of what really happened.
Thread has many interesting insights and links. I've previously bought into the full blown planned hoax explanation but it seems like 'Appel was completely incompetent as a sailor and more than a little bonkers and a huge bullshitter' is perhaps more likely.
She crashed her previous boat on the rocks at Magic Island [2] (Ala Moana Beach Park). Daily Mail (ugh) ran a (NSFW) article [3] that focused on her BDSM activities but also gives some relevant background on her general sailing incompetence and perhaps impairment of her judgement due to a previous motorcycle injury. Apparently she also had no experience in open ocean short of taking her new boat from Kauai to Oahu
Yes, everything fits, seeing what Appel actually wanted, if I understood correctly: her wish was anyway to sail with the boat to some inhabited island and live on it for as long as it would be possible. Therefore it wasn't an accident for her to have the food "planned for a year" on the boat, she prepared for that. Then as she failed to reach an island, she figured out it's not much worse simply floating as long as they can, and kept the "call for help" option for as late as possible. Therefore she didn't want to even try to send a help signal too early.
Then even if the "details" (storms, sharks) turn out to be lies, what remains should be enough for her to enjoy a little more being "famous." I would like if she'd sell the rights for a movie about all what she did.
However, what definitely doesn't fit the story of being five months at the sea in any form is Appel's skin.
I can imagine that she managed to spend good amount of time just as she wished: on some inhabited island. Which would also explain the green stuff on the ship: it could have mostly grown while they were on the island. But I believe everybody would catch a lot of sun on an inhabited island too.
So if they haven't been on some island, they must have then really spent most of the time inside of the boat, being satisfied with floating. Once one doesn't care about actively navigating the boat she doesn't have to be too much exposed to the sun. Then the growth on the ship maybe originates even from the time before they started sailing: if the most money and energy was invested in the food "enough for one year" then it wouldn't be surprising.
My bet is they were doing a drug run. From what I hear runners will leave drugs tied to buoys off uninhabited islands and they’ll be picked up by small boats. They don’t bring drugs onboard in case they’re searched.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they got scared when they saw the coastguard and cut the load. Just like Han Solo.
Edit - that could also explain the ‘shark attack’ story - a loose load tied to one side could bump and damage the hull. They’re trying to cover if someone notices, instead of saying ‘Oh I misjudged a channel width once and bashed the side’.
Why come up with an elaborate story that would garner maximal attention if they were smuggling? If they'd already tossed the goods than they could just tell the CG they were recreational sailors. No need for a headline grabbing tale of survival.
Plus they really seem to have been at sea for six-months. If you're smuggling I assume you want to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible and get rid of the goods, not drift around the Pacific with the contraband.
If they were actually smuggling, they were not smuggling just for themselves. Obviously they are just doing errands for some kind of criminal organization. And they just lost a lot of expensive stuff that belongs to that criminal organization.
When they go back and higher ups will know about it, these two lasses are basically dead. So they created this story and tried to get as much attention as possible, hoping that it will help them avoid the imminent punishment.
When they showed pictures of the dogs bounding off the boat I was suspicious - they would have to have been fishing constantly while awake to keep two dogs that healthy that long (based on the food supply in news reports) and the two women in no way resembled the other sunburned, lips chapped, emaciated seafaring people who have been rescued after months at sea.
That seems pretty common with people inexperienced at lying to authorities. Cops let's say. People try to pre-emptively come up with explanations for things they think the cop is going to wonder and ask about. Which of course does nothing but reveal to the cop what issues are preoccupying the mind of the liar.
Also for whatever reason those stories always run to the extravagant and complicated, rather than simpler & more plausible explanations. (Or the obviously best policy of just S'ing TF U.)
If I had to speculate why that is, I'd say it's probably that whoever decides they need to intervene to shape the narrative, already has an overinflated sense of how valuable and beneficial their story (and their talking in general) is to the outcome. Once you've decided the thing that will set things right and save you, is your gums, flapping, then why not go whole-hog? Obviously more of a good thing is better! (They think.)
They may have done several successful smuggling runs in those 6 months. They just didn't want to explain their wherabouts so they came up with the lost at sea story.
Maybe they just want to be famous so that the kingpins can't just kill them off easily then. Just as people claim one reason for Abramovic buying Chelsea is so that he becomes famous and can't be easily purged in the Russian political circles.
Drug trafficking is a sophisticated, multi-tens-of-$bn international industry run by intelligent, ruthless people.
Although I do not speak from experience, I find it impossible to believe that anyone who needed to move a 50-foot boat load of narcotics would have hired these prevaricating morons.
I get why it would make sense to employ mules who are credibly non-narcotraficante-ish. I just don't think anyone with access to thousands of pounds of illegal drugs would be dumb enough to entrust the payload to these two.
I also thought it was beached/careened as soon as I saw the shape of the algae line. I haven't seen any pictures of it but I'll bet the other side is nice and sun-bleached.
Caveats: I'm not a "blue-water" sailor but I've got a small sailing yacht that's easily capable of coastal cruising. When I originally saw their interview, I thought through most of the points in this article and decided I wasn't qualified to write it all up. But just about anyone who sails will at least point out the most obvious five points.
My first thought was ... why didn't someone go up the mast in the bosun's chair and fix that spreader?
Agreed that boat wasn't loaded down to that waterline, no way, and anyway the curve is all wrong. The beaching explanation seems reasonable but its also hard to credit that these two beached a 50' boat and got it off again. I've never done it, and wouldn't unless in extreme need, but I know it's not that easy and it takes a specific sort of beach to manage it without tearing the boat up.
I concur, this boat was heeled over for a while. Sailing along upwind on one tack could do that. I don't know the pacific, the course they took if that would be feasible. (normally people sail downwind if possible, its a lot nicer)
Aside from the fact that Matt Rutherford's story is well documented and consistent, that picture you linked to shows a boat that spent twice the time in the water, was crewed by a single person, is half the size of Appel's boat, and is supposed to have actually spent most of that time under sail and thus heeling over, getting a lot of the freeboard wet.
A second picture of a boat that actually spent most of its time under sail doesn't really strengthen your point much. The fouling on Appel's boat doesn't match her story.
Possible motive: perhaps Appel fell in love with Fuiava, and wanted a few months of exclusive companionship to win her over. Easy to tell a landlubber that all comms and motive power are down, and sharks are trying to kill them so they need to cuddle together in fear below decks.
> But weirdly, they claim to have gone through 90% of their food by the time they were rescued. So did they bring six months’ supply or a year? And how did they go through it so quickly?
My biggest question is why do people get worked up over this? They are clearly dumb, and I don't see what sort of personal gain they would get from this. It's not a story of heroism, it's a story of being relatively dumb and surviving by luck. There's not much here to celebrate, so whether or not they are lying, there's not much worse they could look. But the number of people who are getting worked up and feel like they should "expose" these people are much higher than I would have imagined.
The other thing is, every single one of the "problems" the post brings up could be easily explained by "They are idiots." There's no mystery that they already seem dumb, why is it such a mystery to the blogger that they were able to survive by simply being lucky and prepared? Their explanations are off because they're dumb and they don't know what they're talking about, but in that context, all their explanations make sense.
That is an interesting question and one I've thought a bit about.
There is a strong sense of 'wrongness' in the US culture when Alice tells Bob a lie and Charlie knows it is a lie but Bob doesn't. Later Bob will be offended and ashamed that he believed Alice's lie to be the truth so in anticipation of that wrong, Charlie feels compelled to 'out' the lie and save Bob the embarrassment and hurt. Then when Donna, Edith, and Frank come to Alice's defense and double down on the lie Charlie goes apoplectic trying to defend against it for Bob's sake.
I think the challenge here is that uncontested lies that end up in the group consciousness as possible truths can have consequences that effect the group. Perhaps a bad example but one that has happened, is a community that gets a cell tower removed, reducing cell service to everyone in the community, because a group of them believe the cell tower is causing medical conditions to manifest in them.
Alice tells Bob his headaches are being caused by the cell tower, Charlie argues that she is mistaken, Donna, Edith, and Frank side with Alice and the tower is removed and now Charlie has to stand on the back corner of his porch to hit the cell tower one neighborhood over to make reliable phone calls. That is the sort of scenario Charlie fears that the lie persisting will create.
When people have a few experiences like that, where a lie they knew was a lie, came back and made their life poorer because it wasn't identified as such early on. They start having stronger and stronger reactions to lies like that. Sort of an escalating immune response if you will.
That is my current theory on why people get so worked up over stories like this.
I see your point, however, the level of vitriol I see is beyond reasonable. The poster is clearly offended beyond any sense of reasonableness by this story. And he is attacking these two as if they are some master criminals at work. They haven't asked for money as far as I can tell, and they don't even claim to be victims of very much except their own ineptitude. She even says she didn't feel like her life was at risk for any 24 hr period.
And yet, the blogger feels obsessed with going over the minutiae of this and trying to prove how these two are con artists, but I don't see the con. I feel like the anger is completely out of place, given the lack of crime, which is fascinating to me. And I've seen several posts like this, which is why it's something I've noticed specifically with this story.
I think it's simply for the same reason people find Chris McCandless [0] polarizing. Communities don't like the media glorifying the grossly inexperienced among them. In this case, it happens to be the cross-ocean sailing community, which is not known for its eloquent lovey-dovey use of language.
I think the missing piece is that you can't see what assumptions the author is holding. I could imagine that the author is assuming that they will ask for or get some sort of movie or book deal, and they will get money for this event, while "knowing" that it is a giant lie or "con." The author may be trying to protect my fictional 'Bob' from being taken in by what he sees as their poor attempt at deception.
As for the minutiae, it seems to be a familiar response to the others who come to the defense with either implausible or improbable defensive statements like "while it is unlikely all of their radios died at once they could have." The author has gone apoplectic and wants people to know that the only facts he feels have the weight of truth are that these women were on a boat, the boat was originally in Hawaii, and that the Navy picked them up off the boat. He is just that offended by what he perceives as lies that others are "believing."
I would guess that his outrage is being fueled by his own experiences and what he sees as people being "gullible."
I think you are basically right, though I don't think the explanation needs a specific hypothetical victim. Lying, like violence, is often used to advance the perpetrators' interests at the expense of others. When there are victims, most of us, I think, empathize with them and regard the perpetrators with at least distaste, even if we are at no risk of being victims ourselves, and even when the victims are unknown to us. If this were not the case - if we were only concerned with our immediate self-interest - ethical society probably could not exist.
Furthermore, knowing that someone has lied in the past leads us to distrust them, and even warn others about their behavior, even if there is no apparent victim, or even without clear evidence that they are currently being deceptive. Reputation is an important part of the network of trust that an ethical society depends on, and furthermore, we have probably all learned to be wary of deception even when we cannot immediately see the harm. Liars are suspected of being up to no good, and for good reason in general.
It also seems to be that blatant lying provokes more anger, even though subtle, minimal lying is often more effective, perhaps because blatant lying signals confidence in the perpetrator that he will prevail. In this case, the lying is blatant from the perspective of the author, who is knowledgable about the domain.
I recall a study from years ago - some sort of game-theoretic simulation - which showed, given its assumptions, that it was not enough that rule-breakers be punished for the society to remain whole, but so also should those who were tolerant of antisocial behavior. Unfortunately, I have lost track of it so I cannot check the plausibility of its assumptions, but note that someone getting away with something sometimes provokes more anger than the original offense, and then it often extends to those who permitted it. To the author, the lame rationalizations of the womens' defenders probably feels like collusion. Also, I see that in this thread, pfarnsworth's 'but there is no victim here' comment has been downvoted, while khazhou's 'no quarter' comment goes unremarked.
No, there's plenty to gain from this, fame and fortune. This is the kind of story that leads to TV shows, book deals, movie deals. etc. Plus, of course, the obligatory GoFundMe.
The other thing is using The US Navy in this way could be criminal.
There no heroism. They fumbled their way to survival. Unless they want to further humiliate themselves, I don't think there's any deals here. There's no Gofundme either.
People want to hear stories like this one - The fact that it was international news in the first place proves that.
It doesn't matter if they were heroes or not, "stories that make money" aren't always about heroism. "Survival against all odds" is another popular trope. This would fit in the "survival against all odds" category.
People make fools of themselves on reality TV just for the chance of becoming famous.
Hanlon's Razor: Don't attribute to malice something that can be better explained by stupidity. These two aren't smart enough to conspire to come up with some ridiculous story for the purpose of fame. We already know they're stupid. Them weaving a tale just for the purpose of fame seems entirely unlikely. That's my opinion anyway.
> Don't attribute to malice something that can be better explained by stupidity.
You haven't provided an explanation grounded in stupidity. Simply agreeing that they are morons doesn't explain anything about why they created this situation and told these specific lies. You've postulated no motive, not even a stupid one.
Wrong. I have. My explanation is that things happened exactly as they perceived because they are idiots, but it’s not what happened in reality. They probably saw dolphins and thought they were sharks. They probably had 10ft waves and they thought they were 40’ waves etc. none of their story makes sense because they are idiots and can’t describd them better because they are idiots. Etc.
It’s correct. For a long time diet was the limiting factor on the length of see voyages. Terrible things happen to you if you don’t get Vitamin C for example. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy
if you find yourself in similar troubles remember that green algae growing in the ship are also vegetables. I ate Ulva and Enteromorpha and both make a passable salad if taken from a non contaminated source of water, cleaned of sand and debris, and boiled.
Which is why the author followed it up with "I’ll assume they also had some Centrum Silver and canned sardines on board that they didn’t talk about that kept them from dying."
Centrum Silver is a brand of multivitamin. Sardines, being an animal product, is what's called a "complete protein" - one that contains all essential amino acids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_protein
Some plants are complete proteins as well, such as soybeans.
To clarify though, amino acids are not vitamins though, they are a component of protein.
But I don't see the issue. I'm sure they also had hygiene products and things as well. I don't think it's unusual to not mention them. You only need these things in trace amounts. Anyway I think any non vegetarian would pack canned or dried meat.
I see the issue with the dogs but they bought dog food and fed human food to the dogs (Why they used a whole years worth)
Some brief searching ("cooking rice with seawater") indicates that at a minimum you can use seawater diluted with fresh water for cooking if your survival depends on it. Seawater is around 3.5% salt. For perspective, that is something on the order of a soup spoon of salt per soda can volume of water (12fl oz/355mL).
Undiluted seawater suitability seems to vary by food[1][2], my cursory search didn't provide any factual specifics for rice, oatmeal, and vegetables. Some comments indicate you can boil fish in straight seawater.
That's all without considering pollution and natural toxins from algae blooms. The sources I skimmed mentioned commercially sourced culinary "sea water", I would expect some amount of filtering and heat treatment.
At one point I wondered how seawater killed you since there isn't anything (directly) toxic in it.
Your kidneys excrete the excess salt you ingest. The problem is, sea water has higher salinity than the kidneys can excrete so your kidneys have to excrete more water than you ingested of sea water and you actually die of dehydration.
This is why it is so horrible: the more sea water you drink, the more dehydrated you become, the thirstier you get, and the faster you die.
No, it's well known that humans cannot safely ingest the quantity of salt contained in sea water. In a normal situation with available fresh water it would not kill you, but if you were stuck at sea with no fresh water the 35g/L of salt you'd be consuming is way beyond the recommended upper limit of 5g/day.
I understand that pasta cooked in seawater is passable as most of the water (and salt) is discarded. Normally rice absorbs all the water, I don't know if you were clever and boiled it in lots then drained it if that would work.
Would take a lot of fuel though, usually propane for the USA, I think? In the UK many use Butane instead, or CampingGaz - in any case you don't really want to use it all up when you are out at sea.
All your favorite comedians do, all your favorite non-fiction authors do.
Given their ineptitude at sailing I also think their storytelling is also quite awful.
But still I don't see why their basic premise isn't true, 5 months at sea without the skill set or common sense to get home.
I don't get the skepticism on this story but so many other stories are clearly in doubt on HN. Is it because the media is accepting of this skepticism? I mean this story is only reinforcing what the media already has said.
Nothing in particular in this article shows the basic story isn't true. They were to silly to know it wasn't sharks attacking with a bit of exaggeration thrown in?
I have a little experience after living aboard st sea for several years, and am 100% skeptical about their story, however your point is well made and definitely not worthy of down voting.
This is a good example of one of the sad sides of HN.
Cleverly self-fulfilling, but we've banned this account for repeatedly violating the guidelines with uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments. We're happy to unban accounts if you email us at [email protected] and commit to not posting like this anymore.
Firing up the beacon doesn't come free. It's possible they were hoping to get rescued more cheaply.
If it is a legitimate rescue then they probably won't charge you. If you called in a false distress, then they will charge you money and criminally prosecute you as well.
> No politics here (though I’m sure if you squint you can find a way to accuse me of racism or sexism or something)
I am incredibly skeptical of anyone who starts an article like this - comes across like a teenager trying to be edgy.
As for the article itself, I find it incredibly odd how worked up people get over this stuff. The vitriol of the article is quite frustrating to get over even though the analysis and breakdown is accurate.
>I am incredibly skeptical of anyone who starts an article like this - comes across like a teenager trying to be edgy.
Yet, there wasn't any politics in it, was tehre?
>As for the article itself, I find it incredibly odd how worked up people get over this stuff. The vitriol of the article is quite frustrating to get over.
I find the people who find it odd when people get worked up about elaborate scheming, odd.
> Yet, there wasn't any politics in it, was tehre?
That's not the point. There's better ways to express the fact that your post isn't political than implying that people are just "too sensitive" about racism and sexism or something. Like I said, it comes across like a teenager trying to be edgy and that childish tone is carried through the entire article.
> I find the people who find it odd when people get worked up about elaborate scheming, odd.
Again such anger and vitriol. Like honestly why are people so worked up over such a thing? This doesn't bother me at all. If they're lying, the police will figure it out. If they're not, then they won't. What's so odd about just letting idiots be?
I think this armchair cross-examination is tiring and pointless.
EDIT: Never knew being critical of the author's tone was deserving of down-voting - interesting crowd here I must say.
>If they're lying, the police will figure it out. If they're not, then they won't. What's so odd about just letting idiots be?
I know where you're coming from. However this article is not like facebook randos posting their 2 cents on non-stories. The guy has expertise in sailing, and in ripping apart stories, we enjoy both.
Who is the author? Why would they attack these women? Why would they spend so much time and effort on it?
It is just Internet bullying - to try to tear apart these people for sport, and even more viciously the objects of attack are people who have more than enough trauma from a horrible experience. Imagine surviving something like that, only to find discussions on the Internet by people who just seem to enjoy hurting you.
[from their about page:]
> I hate stupid people. I see blatant displays of irrationality so often that I don’t even think about it anymore.
[from the article:]
> I don’t know what the fuck happened. But I do know these women are full of shit.
EDIT: I'll add there's plenty of irony in writing the above and calling others 'stupid'. And it's obsessive Internet rants like the article which turn out to be ignorant, deceitful, and a meaningless waste of time and emotion - i.e., 'stupid' - in the end.
So you think that calling out someone who makes (very) public, demonstrably false statements for pretty clear personal gain is internet bullying? I would call it being held to account - what sane society would listen to such a ridiculous story and not call it the bullshit it obviously is? Allowing that to happen would lead to a society where fantastic lies are the norm and you’d never know if you could trust anything anyone would say.
If I made statements saying that not only did I discover, but also made love to and raised the children of a dragon to international media, do you think it would be bullying for people to tell me it’s nonsense? If so, you’d have a pretty spectacular definition of bullying if you ask me. We should not allow liars to go unchecked.
The article objectifies and abuses its targets (which is what the author's motive is, per their own about page). The way bullying and abuse work, especially in the Internet age, is that people find a target they feel is justified or merely vulnerable (because everyone else is attacking them) and viciously act out against them. Having a crowd do it allows humans to ignore their better sense and to do horrible things; it's an angry mob and people hide in it as they act badly. As most people on HN probably know, there are many, many such incidents; the abuse does real harm to real people. Hurting other people is wrong; engaging in it for some self-righteous motive is obviously a bad, as is doing it because of 'something I read on the Internet'.
> We should not allow liars to go unchecked.
There are many ways to address deceit; none of the good ones include abusing people. No matter what these women did or didn't do, I think the people that abuse them, including the author, are doing much worse. Where is the check on them?
But more importantly, this article is just 'something I read on the Internet', by someone who announces on their about page the intent to abuse people the author thinks is "stupid" (an ironic statement). Surely we are well beyond trusting such things by now. Where is the check on the liars and, more importantly, the abusers of the Internet?
> Allowing that to happen would lead to a society where fantastic lies are the norm and you’d never know if you could trust anything anyone would say.
Once I heard the account of the EPIRB (which I totally forgot about) I knew there it was more than just back luck and some hamming up the story for the camera.
This article does a pretty thorough and entertaining job of breaking down all the inconsistencies from the perspective of an experienced sailor. My dad is going to thoroughly enjoy it.