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 / Updated By Elizabeth Chuck 
 
 Two American sailors who say they survived a five-month ordeal on the open water shot down skeptics Wednesday, reiterating that they had survived squalls, sharks — and more. 
 
 "If you were there, you would say the same thing I did," Jennifer Appel told NBC's Matt Lauer in a TODAY exclusive. 
 
 Appel, 48, and Tasha Fuiava, 26, set sail from Hawaii to Tahiti on May 3, when they say a three-day-long storm overpowered their engine and damaged the boat's mast. 
 
 Five months later, they were spotted by a Taiwanese fishing boat, who towed them in. By that point, they were thousands of miles off-course. A U.S. Navy ship eventually brought them back to dry land. 
 
 Upon rescue, they claimed daily distress calls went unanswered and that at one point, tiger sharks bumped up against their boat. 
 
 Related: Story of Two Americans Lost at Sea for Months Leaves Experts With Questions 
 
 The wild tale vaulted Appel and Fuiava into headlines around the world, but also attracted scrutiny as it was discovered that no storms were recorded on NASA satellite images in the days around their departure. 
 
 Jennifer Appel, right, and Tasha Fuiava sit with their dogs on the deck of the USS Ashland on Oct. 30, 2017, at White Beach Naval Facility in Okinawa, Japan. Koji Ueda / AP 
 
 Coast Guard officials also found that the two women had an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) on board that they never activated — something that would have alerted officials within minutes that they were stranded, and could have led to them being rescued much sooner. 
 
 The National Weather Service and the Coast Guard listed small craft advisories for some squalls in the Hawaii area during the days that they departed, but didn't have any record of large storms like the one Appel has said they weathered. 
 
 "I understand fish stories. I believe that the storm advisory that the U.S. Coast Guard did say that they put out ... was anticipated to be smaller than some of the downdrafts that we saw," Appel told TODAY on Wednesday. "If you were there, you would say the same thing I did. It really felt a lot bigger." 
 
 Appel, an experienced boater, and Fuiava, a novice, were aboard a 50-foot sailboat called the Sea Nymph. The Coast Guard has said they made radio contact with a vessel by the same name in June, and says those aboard confirmed they were OK and close to arriving in Tahiti. 
 
 Appel denied that that happened. Holding up a GPS that was aboard her boat, she said Wednesday, "Our GPS shows we were nowhere near Tahiti." 
 
 Appel also repeated her "terrifying" account of sharks circling the boat for hours and ramming the hull — something that scientists who study tiger sharks say would be unusual. But Appel didn't back down. 
 
 "The sharks had been telling us, you're in our living room, and you're not leaving fast enough. And we didn't realize that was what we were being told until too late," Appel said. 
 
 Appel has said she didn't ever feel that they were in imminent danger, and didn't want to divert the U.S. Coast Guard away from any sailors who were in need of immediate help, hence why she never activated her EPIRB. 
 
 On Wednesday, Appel said they "took our chances with the man upstairs" and decided not to use the emergency beacon even as they sharks closed in. 
 
 "The sharks were six inches away. And using an EPIRB in the location where we were, it's probably four hours to a day before the Coast Guard would have found us," she said. 
 
 The women's claims have been attacked for inconsistencies. In an interview with NBC News after their appearance on TODAY, they said they hoped to clarify what happened, but added a new detail: They said it wasn't until they were towed by a Taiwanese fishing vessel that they actually felt their lives were in danger. 
 
 "We were never 'lost at sea.' We knew where we were the entire time," Appel said. "While the media portrayed a rescue with the Taiwanese fishing vessel, they were actually the reason why we called for help." 
 
 Instead of obeying standard regulations for the distance a vessel is supposed to keep while towing a boat, the Taiwanese vessel purposely rammed against them, she said, overpowering their significantly smaller boat. 
 
 "The Taiwanese fishing vessel was not planning to rescue us," she continued. "They tried to kill us during the night." 
 
 It was then that Appel said she decided to alert the U.S. Coast Guard. But she claimed there was an explanation for why she still didn’t use the EPIRB and instead used the satellite phone on the fishing vessel. 
 
 “I was able to get on a surfboard and get on their boat, make an actual phone call. Because no one spoke English, it was easier and safer for me to relay the information to the U.S. Coast Guard-Guam sector that we were in danger without them realizing what we were saying. If I had thrown the EPIRB at that point, he [the captain] would have known.” 
 
 A spokesperson for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York later called Appel's accusations "untrue" and said the fishing boat is equipped with GPS and a satellite system that automatically submits its track, location, and speed to a 24-hour monitoring center. 
 
 According to the records, "the fishing vessel stopped sailing right after spotting Ms. Appel’s boat and never attempted to ram against their vessel or kill them as she claimed," the office's deputy director-general, Brian Su, said in an email. 
 
 The trip from Honolulu to Tahiti is a fairly common route. The women say they expected it would be an 18-day journey. 
 
 They say they survived off of a year's worth of nonperishables that they had stocked the boat with, like oatmeal and pasta, plus a water purifier. 
 
 Their two dogs were also on the boat with them when they were rescued. 
 
 Appel said Wednesday that she never doubted they would eventually get to dry land, even if the fishing vessel hadn't towed them. 
 
 "We were going to run into land somewhere," she said. 

 Many critics have cast doubt on Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava’s story of being lost at sea for five months and encountering sharks during an ill-fated sailing trip to Tahiti. But the women are standing by their account of the “absolutely terrifying” ordeal. 
 
 Appel and Fuiava set off from their Hawaii homes on a 2,700-mile journey on May 3, but ran into trouble when a powerful storm rendered their boat nearly useless, according to the women. Alongside the technical problems, they said they endured two separate tiger shark encounters — a claim that has prompted many to ask why the women didn’t use their emergency distress beacon to call for help. 
 
 “The sharks were six inches away,” Appel said during a Wednesday interview with Matt Lauer on the Today show. “Using [the signal] means that, in the location that we were, it’s probably four hours to a day that the coast guard would have found us in a fly-over.” 
 
 Koji Ueda/AP 
 
 She added: “So, we took our chances with the man upstairs who gave us grace and allowed us to still be here today.” 
 
 Appel described the sharks circling their boat as “absolutely terrifying,” noting that the women “were too ignorant to realize what was going on.” 
 
 “The sharks had been telling us, ‘You’re in our living room and you’re not leaving fast enough,’ ” she continued. “And we didn’t realize that was what we were being told until too late.” 
 
 The two friends, along with their dogs, Valentine and Zeus, were rescued by the Navy in October after five months at sea in what was supposed to be a month-long journey to Tahiti. 
 
 WATCH: “You never used your distress beacon. Why?” @MLauer asks 2 women “lost at sea” pic.twitter.com/Y8LYgWNv6R — TODAY (@TODAYshow) November 8, 2017 
 
 The women said they hit a Force 11 storm just days after setting off in their sailing boat, Sea Nymph. However, when contacted by PEOPLE, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had no record of any Force 11 storm happening around Hawaii at the beginning of May. 
 
 “I’m actually a heavy sleeper,” Fuiava said before referring to the storm. “I knocked out, like, dead. It didn’t phase me.” 
 
 Appel added that although she is used to sailing in troubled waters, she never expected such a storm to hit. 
 
 NBC News Twitter 
 
 “I said, ‘Tasha, if I make a mistake doing this, we’re going to die tonight.’ And she said, ‘Oh I trust you. Go ahead and have fun.’ ” 
 
 Despite their ordeal, they said they plan to set sail again. 
 
 “We still never got to see the 20,000 islands, so I think that would be the most fantastic trip for May of next spring,” Appel said during a news conference at a U.S. Navy base in Japan. She announced plans to build an “unsinkable and unbreakable boat” for the new voyage. 

 Two women who captured international attention when they were rescued by the U.S. Navy five months after setting sail from Hawaii defended themselves Wednesday from claims that they lied about some of the details of their tale of being lost at sea. 
 
 Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava stuck to their guns as Matt Lauer pointed out holes in their story on the Today show. 
 
 Appel and Fuiava – both Americans – were found 900 miles southeast of Japan last month, wildly off course from their planned route of Hawaii to Tahiti. 
 
 The women claimed they survived a storm with 25-foot waves that hit early on in their trip. However Lauer pressed them on that claim, saying that the U.S. Coast Guard had no record of a storm of that size in the area. 
 
 “I believe the storm advisory that the U.S. Coast Guard did put out… was anticipated to be smaller,” Appel said. “If you were there you would say the same thing that I did, it really felt a lot bigger.” 
 
 The pair also faced questions about their claims that they were surrounded by sharks whacking their tails against the hull of their boat. Experts have said that sharks have never been recorded behaving that way, Lauer told the women. 
 
 Fuaiva said their encounter with the sharks was “absolutely terrifying.” 
 
 Appel said they never activated their distress beacon when the sharks surrounded them because it would have taken too long for them to be rescued. Instead, she said, they prayed to God. 
 
 In a bizarre turn to the interview, Appel pulled out a GPS device she said they used on their journey. “Garmin makes a great product,” she said, smiling. She also eagerly interrupted Lauer when he mentioned they used a water purifier on their trip, interjecting with the name of the brand – Katadyn. 
 
 Ted Gartner, the Director of Corporate Communications at Garmin International, told TIME: “Garmin only found out about their Today show interview after it aired. To my knowledge, we have not had any contact with either woman, nor have we compensated either of them in any way.” 
 
 Katadyn could not be immediately reached for comment.
– Amid mounting questions, two women who may or may not have been lost at sea for five months are sticking to their story—which involves a massive storm and "terrifying" shark attacks—and adding one new wrinkle: the Taiwanese fishing vessel that was reported to have rescued them actually tried to kill them, NBC News reports. In an interview with Matt Lauer Wednesday on Today, Jennifer Appel, 48, said the fishing vessel rammed their 50-foot sailboat on purpose. "The Taiwanese fishing vessel was not planning to rescue us," she said. "They tried to kill us during the night." She said that was what finally prompted her to call the Coast Guard for help—after never activating their boat's emergency beacon—which she did by using a surfboard to board the fishing vessel and use its satellite phone. Appel earlier claimed she and Tasha Fuiava, 26, were beset by a Force 11 storm with massive waves soon after leaving Hawaii in May, but NOAA has no record of that size a storm in the area at the time, People reports. On Wednesday, Appel said she believes officials are underestimating storm sizes. Fuiava, on the other hand, said she slept through the storm, which apparently took out their boat's engine and damaged its mast. The pair also maintained tiger sharks repeatedly hit the boat with their tails despite experts saying that would be highly unusual. Appel said the sharks were telling them, "You're in our living room." A couple other oddities from the interview: Appel denied the Coast Guard's claim that it contacted them in June; denied, in fact, ever actually being "lost at sea"; and, as Time reports, twice interrupted Lauer to plug her Garmin GPS and Katadyn water purifier.