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HMS Bounty in trouble...

278K views 2K replies 105 participants last post by  PCP 
#1 ·
The HMS Bounty is a tall ship that was built in Nova Scotia in 1961 for the MGM movie "Mutiny on the Bounty", starring Marlon Brando...she appears to be in trouble from Hurricane Sandy.

From ABC News:
2:55 AM EDT: Coast Guard spokesman David Weydert tells ABC News, "The Coast Guard received notification that the sailing vessel HMS Bounty was in distress. We responded by sending out a C-130 aircraft and we're currently monitoring the situation."

And the ships website confirms she is in harms way:
TallShipBounty.org

I sure hope this story has a happy ending.
 
#2 · (Edited)
#6 ·
Many larger vessels (including navy ships, cruise ships) put to sea for hurricanes since they are more likely to be damaged or sunk in harbour. I suspect the HMS Bounty was somewhere in the projected landfall area of Sandy and was trying to get south to safer water...damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Latest from CBC says the crew has taken to the liferafts and USCG choppers are on the way. I sure hope they make it out OK.
 
#4 ·
They were on passage from Canada to Florida, and they had left Canada before Sandy was even a tic on NHC's radar. They detoured WELL east of the storm track, not right off Hatteras as the article makes it appear ... but this is a BIG storm.
 
#25 ·
Ah... Well... Actually not. They abandoned ship 90 miles southeast of Hatteras. The NDBC in the vicinity (34.561 N 72.631 W) was reporting 30.5' waves and NNE winds gusting at 64 knots.

We spent some time aboard that ship awhile back and it was a disaster. Planks and frames were rotted, seams were weeping, the timbers around all of the windows in the stern castle were rotted enough that I could push a knife-blade in to the hilt, etc. When I commented on this to the kid that was the watch captain he acknowledge all of the problems but said they didn't have the money to make all of the repairs needed and so focused on the engine, generator and pumps and "..never sail in a following sea".

My daughter wanted to spend a season sailing/studying aboard but we prohibited it. (Instead she and 9 other kids spent the season sailing a 52' Beneteau from St. Martin to Trini with two teacher/instructors).

Jeeze I hope they find all of the kids. Some are missing as I write.

The following was taken during our visit aboard:
 

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#7 ·
#10 ·
From CBC News:
As of 8:20 a.m. AT, a U.S. Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter had begun hoisting the crew members from the life-rafts.

Campbell said officials were still trying to determine exactly how many crew members were on board. The Coast Guard was originally told 17 people were on the Bounty but only 16 heat signatures were detected.
 
#12 ·
It doesn't seem like 18' seas should have been too much for a boat of that size. Sounds like she opened up some seams and pumps couldn't keep up with it. Will be interesting to hear what actually happened. There may be no fault other than inadequate pump capability or lack of bottom maintenance. Glad they're OK.
 
#28 · (Edited)
It doesn't seem like 18' seas should have been too much for a boat of that size. Sounds like she opened up some seams and pumps couldn't keep up with it.
There's a big difference between 18 ft seas with a 15 second period and the 18 ft. seas you may find on the eastern side of the Gulf Stream (which is where they seem to be) with gale / trop storm force winds out of the north. An 18 foot wave with a really steep face (which is what happens when you have strong winds against a big current) can be a killer even in a boat this size -- first one stops forward progress, second one pushes the bow off the wind, third one and those following break over the ship. Not good.

Re. seams opening and pumps not being able to keep up....that's a reasonalbe guess. Big waves pushing an older wooden boat around will probably put some nasty forces on the hull / rig.

As for being in the wrong place at the wrong time....if he left Canada before the storm developed, the skipper would have faced some difficult choices. Remember that when the storm was over Jamacia half or more of the models forecast it to go NE into the Atlantic. It was only as the storm moved north that they shifted the track to the west and eventually decided it would take the left turn. If you're south of the Gulf Stream on the longitude of, say, Cape Cod, and facing a tropical storm moving north over the Bahamas, where 1/2 of the models say it's going east and half west, what do you do? Not an easy decision, eh?
 
#13 ·
They had just come from weeks of maintenance in Canada. So boat should have been in good shape??? I'm also reading that they lost propulsion?
 
#14 ·
There's got to be a lot of lineal feet of seams on a boat like that. Once they start working and opening up, the bilge can fill up pretty quickly. I remember well how seemingly tight seams can open up in a pounding. Wonder if there were any manual pumps such as on the old square riggers? Of course the old ships had a lot more hands to man those pumps for hours on end. It really is a shame to lose one of these tall ships like this. They are magnificent.
 
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#15 ·
Oops, correction, they had already left Canada, they were in New London, CT a few days ago. That totally made sense, then, given Sandy's predicted impacts in NY and New England, that they'd be safer at sea than in port. They ssailed out due east to get well clear of the storm before continuing south. The Navy sent all their vessels out from Norfolk in advance of the storm for the same reason - sometimes you're safer away from the dock!
 
#16 ·
... That totally made sense, then, given Sandy's predicted impacts in NY and New England, that they'd be safer at sea than in port. They ssailed out due east to get well clear of the storm before continuing south. The Navy sent all their vessels out from Norfolk in advance of the storm for the same reason - sometimes you're safer away from the dock!
That can make sense on a ship that can stand storm conditions with ease. I don't think that will applies to an old remake of an historic boat.

Regards

Paulo
 
#29 ·
....in New London as recently as last Thursday.

see The Day - USS Mississippi on the Bounty | News from southeastern Connecticut

I think I'd have looked for a good anchorage in the upper reaches of Narragansett Bay....and put trust in the ground tackle. Going to sea in a naval ship, cruise ship, or merchant ship to avoid a storm is one thing, heading offshore in an old wooden boat (with rot problems as reported above) is something different.

Looks like he was trying to get by Hatteras reaching away from the storm center -- which is what you should do -- when he ran out of time and sea room. The Gulf Stream can as much of a threat in a storm as the shore line is.

Sad story.
 
#63 ·
Oh man this is awful! Where is the "I don't like" button when you need it.:(

As a recovering wooden boat owner this story gives me chills. I've been in a storm and cracked a garboard and started taking on water before. Almost lost the boat. I've also had my boat in a recently refitted condition and seen the bilge pumps working overtime just because the planks were "working". I'm going to go and kiss my overly thick fiberglass hull next time I'm aboard.

Thoughts and prayers go out to those who are lost and missing.

MedSailor
 
#18 ·
Good Morning America just interviewed someone from Coast Guard, who said 10 feet of water on deck when they abandoned and ship is now sunk. They rescued 14 and 2 or 3 unaccounted for.

Ugh. Sux.
 
#19 ·
You make the best decisions you can at the time and, sometimes, it just doesn't work out no matter what you do.

In '95 my ship (US Navy) was coming back from the Med. There was a big hurricane just leaving the African coast headed west, so we stayed in the Azores for a few days waiting for the storm to commit to a track so we'd know what to do. It appeared to be turning north early, so we proceeded west on our way toward Halifax to go around it. Lo and behold, storm #2 appears and takes a much more westerly track, then turns north toward the eastern seaboard. Great... back to the Azores for two more days.

Finally, because we are due home after 6 months at sea, we set out on a very odd southerly track to give ourselves lots of sea room to run. Hurray for us, storm #3 appears.

Sometimes, you just do what you have to do. We point for the weakest of the storms and hoped for the best. That storm becomes Hurricane Gordon and it's moving faster than we can run around it. We put on turns and buckled up. Talk about a ride, it was one of those storms where if you aren't on watch you are in your rack hanging on tight. If you are on watch, you lock down on a handhold and enjoy the ride. We were putting the front gun under water and alternately feeling the screws run free when the stern was lifted out of the water. This went on for a few days.

On that ship, an Aegis Cruiser, you can see down the main passageway for several hundred feet. What's freaky is looking down the passageway and watching the watertight door hatchways misalign in opposite directions, back and forth, as the ship is twisted and untwisted, then twisted the other way.

Now, imagine a bunch of calked wooden seams going through that. The poor souls on the Bounty replica were probably crapping square-edged bricks. Unlike Uncle Sam's Canoe Club, the guys on the Bounty replica are just working a job. They aren't indentured servants and they aren't fighting men freely willing to die for their shipmates as a matter of course. If it was me on the Bounty replica? "Man the lifeboats, mateys- we've done what we could within reason. This tub's going down and it's insured. **** happens. That's what insurance is for.

The point of my long, rambling post is this: The captain the Bounty replica made the decisions he made based on the information he had. Sometimes events conspire against our best laid plans and protocols. You do what you can, which is what he and the crew did. But at the end of the day, the old tub is a replica and a prop. It is a physical asset that is insured and nothing more. If your office building caught fire, would you be the daring guy on the hose trying desperately to save the desks and file cabinets when the roof collapses? Of course you wouldn't. Don't romanticize the Bounty replica because it's a pretty wooden boat. For anyone to die trying to ride out a storm would be the greatest act of moronic stupidity.
 
#22 ·
The story I just read was very confusing. In one line of the story it said that that the manifest listed 16 crew and that's what the Coast Guard has picked up, then right after that it said two could be missing.

Let's hope this is just a case of a confused reporter re-reporting second hand information. God I pray nobody was lost in this.
 
#24 ·
Not good news from CBC:
"Two crew members of a Nova Scotia-built replica vessel are missing after abandoning ship off the coast of North Carolina in high seas brought on by Hurricane Sandy.

Officials with the U.S. Coast Guard told CBC News the 16-member crew of HMS Bounty decided to abandon ship after getting caught in 5.5-metre seas off Cape Hatteras on Monday.

All the crew members made it onto two life-rafts but only 14 people were hoisted onto helicopters, said U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Brendan Selerno. He said officials have not yet had the chance to debrief the 14 survivors to find out what happened to the two other crew members.

Selerno said the two missing crew members are believed to be in survival suits. He said the air search is being plotted based on wind direction and speed, and will be expanded.

HMS Bounty sank several hours after the evacuation.

The Coast Guard was originally told 17 people were on the Bounty but only 16 heat signatures were detected. They now say 16 people were on board."
 
#32 ·
The two missing crew have been identified; one of them is the skipper. From CBC News:
"Three crew members were washed overboard as they tried to get to two covered life-rafts, said the U.S. Coast Guard. Only one of the three members made it to the life-raft and was among the 14 people hoisted onto helicopters.

Coast Guard officials said the two missing crew members - a man and a woman - are believed to be in cold water survival suits and life-jackets. He said the air search is being plotted based on wind direction and speed, and will be expanded.

Claudia McCann, whose husband Robin Walbridge is the captain of the Bounty, told CBC News her husband is one of the two missing crew members. CBC News has learned the other missing crew member is Claudene Christian.

HMS Bounty sank several hours after the evacuation."

2 missing as Hurricane Sandy sinks HMS Bounty - Nova Scotia - CBC News

Slim chances unfortunately...hope for a miracle.
 
#36 ·
I wonder if that was a conscious decision by the captain. The most dangerous stuff is on the east side of the eye. Granted, there's no great place to be in a hurricane and the left side of the eye isn't a whole lot better until a good chunk of the storm is over land.

Perhaps they thought the storm track would carry farther East than it actually did and he was trying to keep options open for making port by staying West of the storm. It might have been too late once the captain realized the storm had turned West, at which point he simply couldn't point East due to headwinds.

Just my .02 Hate to second guess the man who does this for a living and has the lives of others in his charge.
 
#39 ·
Just my .02 Hate to second guess the man who does this for a living and has the lives of others in his charge.
Shoalfinder, a note of appreciation for your respectful attitude. We can analyze the event dispassionatelyand try to learn; that seems appropriate. Some seem intent on placing "blame" - appreciate that you are not one of them. We spent 3 days on the ship volunteering with them for their education mission when they were in Annapolis, and met many of the crew and the skipper. He's one of the two missing.
 
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