That version is easier to read. It is also less true to the actual situation.
The honest telling requires holding several things simultaneously. José Salvador Alvarenga survived something remarkable. The core of his account is supported by evidence — oceanographic modeling, official departure records, medical examination, the physical state of the boat on arrival. Some specific details of his account cannot be independently verified and are his testimony, attributed as such. The early reporting was imprecise on multiple points and should not be treated as the authoritative version. The later, more carefully documented account that emerged from Franklin’s extended engagement is more reliable than the early reports, but it is still based primarily on Alvarenga’s testimony.
None of this diminishes the story. If anything, the complexity makes it more interesting and more honest. A man survived 438 days at sea on the Pacific in a small open boat. That happened. The official record confirms it. What he experienced during those 438 days is known only through what he has told us, and he has told us a great deal, and what he has told us is consistent with what the scientific and medical experts say is possible, and what the ocean circulation models say is plausible, and what the man who interviewed him at length and in depth says he found credible.
That is a substantial body of support for an account that is ultimately, as all accounts of isolated events are, dependent on the witness who was there.
The honest response is to present the account as what it is: testimony, well-corroborated and credible, from a man who survived something that most people would not have survived, describing an experience that no one else was present to observe. The reader can make of that what they will.