No, I don't believe their story. I haven't read the entire account, but it appears they had an emergency beacon on board which they never used, even when there were other ships in the area. I'm not sue why they are making this claim, but it sounds a little fishy to me along with the claim that they took a year's worth of food and dog food with them to go from Hawaii to Tahiti. If it turns out that they could have been rescued sooner and did nothing to make that happen, they should have to reimburse the Coast Guard.