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Bounty captain Robin Walbridge's 'reckless decision' blamed for sinking

27K views 175 replies 50 participants last post by  sailorbill1 
#1 ·
#4 ·
Nobody denies that sailing into the hurricane was the primary root cause. However, this finding is significant, and is the reason why the investigation had to be undertaken:

The NTSB also pointed out in its report that the company responsible for the ship, HMS Bounty Organization, LLC, "did nothing to dissuade the captain from sailing into known severe weather conditions."

The board said that oversight contributed to the ship's sinking.
 
#5 ·
When I first saw the video wherein Capt Walbridge said, with a Mona Lisa smile, "we chase hurricanes", I could have predicted the "authorities" would conclude pretty much as the NTSB did.

Being caught out in a storm is one thing. Leaving port to head towards one is "something else".

Too bad they lost the two lives. And many many thanks to the Coast Guard that they didn't lose the rest.
 
#9 ·
Sorry, I would blame a lot of it on the builder.

Ships and boats are supposed to utilize wind and water. Short of hitting shallow water or failing to depower the sails there is a limit to what manoevering a ship can do.

The ship obviously was designed for lakes and rivers regardless of what the builder claimed. Since it was not a racing vessel there is no good reason (except for price points) that a boat could not lie a hull in a hurricane.

If there was not a lot of inadequate design in the world today I'd have to have found another way to support my hobbies.
 
#10 ·
Sorry, I would blame a lot of it on the builder.

Ships and boats are supposed to utilize wind and water. Short of hitting shallow water or failing to depower the sails there is a limit to what manoevering a ship can do.

The ship obviously was designed for lakes and rivers regardless of what the builder claimed. Since it was not a racing vessel there is no good reason (except for price points) that a boat could not lie a hull in a hurricane.

If there was not a lot of inadequate design in the world today I'd have to have found another way to support my hobbies.
Wow, you're going to blame a builder who built a vessel to make a movie and expected her to burn in the last scene of the movie?
That's totally unfathomable to me. She outlived her expected lifespan by 52 years!
 
#12 ·
This is why we pay so much for government. To come to conclusions that are obvious. But at least they came to the obvious solution. Image if they spent all that time and money and determined it had nothing to do with sailing into a hurricane.
 
#14 ·
If it was a movie prop why was it off shore? Was the captain or company informed that it was just a movie prop and never was intended to be sailed.

Yes a lot of poor judgement was shown but basically somebody built and sold an un-seaworthy boat.

We certainly can't blame the holding companies. OOP's Heading for PWRG:confused:
 
#16 ·
If it was a movie prop why was it off shore? Was the captain or company informed that it was just a movie prop and never was intended to be sailed.

Yes a lot of poor judgement was shown but basically somebody built and sold an un-seaworthy boat.

We certainly can't blame the holding companies. OOP's Heading for PWRG:confused:
There has possibly been more written about this vessel than any other vessel in history. Why don't you do a little reading about her history and perhaps you will find the answers to these rather simple questions for yourself. I'm afraid I can't be more help without being rude.
 
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#15 ·
What I never realized until seeing that map on pg 6 of the report is how much the captain turned the ship to move directly toward the hurricane and between the lee shore. Given the amount of weather information that would have been available, it seems unlikely he didn't know how massive that storm was before making that decision.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Given the amount of weather information that would have been available, it seems unlikely he didn't know how massive that storm was before making that decision.
Yeah. He turned deliberately as he said in the tv interview to chase hurricanes and get the wind behind him. He had no intention, by the looks, of staying to the east of it. If he had he would have had head winds and be in the dangerous quadrant.

Btw there was a post saying he should have layed ahull (a concept i hate, but lets say hove to)... He couldnt do that as the hurricane would have gone right over his head. But punching down with all speed destroyed his boat.

Once he left harbour he was committed.

When looked at it like that his decision making was more than just stupid or negligent....
 
#19 · (Edited)
In its final hours, the Bounty took on about three metres of sea water in a 3½-day voyage the NTSB says "should never have been attempted."
Before setting sail in October 2012 the Bounty had undergone maintenance and repairs, most of which were performed by an inexperienced crew with little understanding of the specialized work, according to the NTSB report.
"One of their tasks was to caulk and reseam a wooden hull, which had known areas of rot, with compounds supplied by the captain, including a silicone sealant marketed for household use," said an NTSB news release
It was reckless to leave the harbor under any conditions, it was taking on too much water sitting at the dock. It was certified as a "dockside attraction" and was no more sea worthy than the merry-go-round at the other end.
Bathroom caulk for goodness sakes.
 
#29 · (Edited)
As I have said many times previously I walked around that boat on multiple occasions while she was on the rails in Boothbay. IMHO it should have been deemed unfit....

Unfortunately nearly EVERY image of her grotesquely rotted frames and shoddy Band-Aid like re-fit have 100% vanished from the net. I had hot-linked many and they are now gone.... Go figure...

I would not have sailed around Boothbay Harbor on that boat for a "Three Hour Tour" let alone ventured into the Atlantic. Walbridge chose to head beyond Boothbay, in a vessel barely fit for Lake Winnipesaukee, and on top of that he nheaded directly into a hurricane.

I think the term "reckless" fits nicely....
 
#20 ·
I crewed on the "californian" a very very well maintained tall ship that was used in the movie AMISTAD bout 110 feet long or so.

this boat was impeccably maintained and had a very knowleadgeable captain and crew...they cruised the pacific and atlantic routes frequently.

so its not that all tall ships or replicas are sitting dock museums its again captain and crew responsabilty to maintain, upkeep modify and know the boats limitations.

for example If I as crew knowingly made a blind eye to using bathroom caulk on rotten wood(not seems) I would of simply quit my job before leaving that day.

simple

blame can be thrown all ways here..the point was in the end the captain made a wrong decision and the crew didnt either.

notice the article made mention of non experienced crew many times..?

this is key..as a captain on an old wooden replica can be quite endearing...bravado is common.

peace
 
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#24 ·
Is this the same vessel that was at Mystic Sea Port for a while?
 
#21 · (Edited)
Absolutely one bad decision after another. All based upon poor judgement.

Using non marine calking was an inexcusable cut corner. Shows the willinness of the captain and the company to take unneeded risk.

As for the crew all agreeing to set sail with the captain? That i get. Though the report states the captain clearly gave them a choice, the peer pressure, loyalty and faith in the captain were all in play. it would have been very difficult for any of the crew, especially the less experienced members to opt out.

Interestingly other accidents point out the pressure to go. Among them a report of a Pan Am 727 that crashed will taking off from the airport at New Orleans. Though there was a severe thunderstorm at the airport planes continued to take off and land. Rather than delay the flight a few minutes to let the storm pass the Captain of this airliner hit the throttles and went for it. The plane crashed less than a minute later about a mile from the airport. Put on the ground by a micro burst. One of the side notes of that investigation was the pressure on the crew to go. other planes were going. Other pilots from their own airline were going. There was no way these pilots, using there better judgement, could tell their dispatchers they were gonna sit there until this thing passes. Pressure to go leads to bad judgement and a lot of lives lost or needlessly put in danger.
 
#32 ·
As for the crew all agreeing to set sail with the captain? That i get. Though the report states the captain clearly gave them a choice, the peer pressure, loyalty and faith in the captain were all in play. it would have been very difficult for any of the crew, especially the less experienced members to opt out.
Well this is the part I DON'T get.

I wasn't there. And maybe I'm not as intrepid as the average fella. But I am sure my reaction to the Captain's decision to sail would have been...

"Are you f**king NUTS?!!!!??

Maybe I'm too old for peer pressure. After all I am a guy who fails to understand why half the country watches the TV show Survivors or why anyone gives a rip about what any Kardashian or Bieber is up to today or any other day.

And the sea doesn't care about "loyalty and faith"...for the Skipper or anyone else.

I woulda grabbed my sea bag and saluted the quarterdeck watch and taken my leave...in a heartbeat.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Sorry, I would blame a lot of it on the builder. - mechsmith




You find me one ship builder in the world who will build and certify a wooden square rigger for use in a major atlantic hurricane off Hatteras with 30 foot waves and 100 mph wind. Doesn't exist. Might as well take the boat over Niagra Falls.
 
#27 ·
The NTSB disagrees -

The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the sinking of tall ship Bounty was the captain's reckless decision to sail the vesel into the path of Hurricane Sandy.

That is the official cause. They could have included the construction or condition of the ship in that - but they chose not to.
 
#33 ·
Columbus Foundation's Nina and Pinta are in port at Perdido Key today and tomorrow inviting tours by the general public. May have to go down there and take a look.

Hmmm....wonder why the foundation chose February rather than August or September to be sailing those vessels along the Gulf Coast? Let me think...must be a reason...
 
#48 ·
I used to crew on the Nina. Try and make it out to see them they are pretty impressive. Especially since most of the time when people tour or think tall ships they are from the 19th century, ships and life were certainly different in the 15th century.

When Sandy hit I believe they where in Charleston, WV. They do their best to avoid foul weather, and the ships are very well built and maintained. This is actually the first port after being in the shipyard for about six weeks for yearly maintenance.
 
#36 ·
Whatever happened to "Not speaking ill of the dead" for which I was lambasted?

However, in this case, I agree, he musta been nuts. Yet we had ppl here trying to ride out Sandy aboard their boats and when I criticized them I was criticized for doing so. Foolishness is foolishness whether people here like it or not.

So, was this simply a case of bad judgement or was he suicidal? Surely he knew of the poor condition of the vessel.
 
#37 ·
I believe the official report missed a key element of the bad seamanship -- they come very close to omitting the role of the Gulf Stream in any of the many bad decisions the skipper made.

In my post to the thread here shortly after the sinking I made the point that once the Bounty crossed into the Gulf Stream the "die was cast" and the choices open to the captain were limited to the actions he took.

Look at the charts in the report. They crossed the Stream in fair weather with a N'ly component wind. As the storm approached the winds clocked to NE, then E'ly. At this point Bounty is across the Stream , which in this area is 100 or so miles wide, and he can't go back to the New England coast because he has a building wind against current.

And he can't continue SE because his ship won't sail to weather. His choices are taking a S'ly course head on into the storm, or heading SW, which he did.

Also, turning the slow-moving Bounty to the west ahead of the storm would risk pinning the vessel between the hurricane and land......
While technically correct, this statement from the report would have been more accurate from a navigational perspective it it said "pinning the vessel between the hurricane and the strong NE Current of the Gulf Stream." In this circumstance the land is more or less irrelevant.

By Saturday the Bounty was flirting with the eastern wall of the Stream. If they went any further west (away from the storm) they would have been in an even worse situation with 60 or more knots blowing right down the axis of the oncoming current.

The report does mention the GS....

.....As the Bounty continued toward the southwest, the vessel began to feel the effects of the Gulf Stream, a powerful ocean current with a strong northeast trajectory. Because of that, the Bounty may have encountered eddies, counter currents, and slower currents traveling with, but outside of, the main axis of the Gulf Stream. Any of these may have provided additional stress on the hull.
....but it misses the real point of Bounty's brush with the Stream. A boat moving through a current isn't stressed by the current per se. It is stressed be large steep waves created by wind vs. current.

None of the above in any way changes the very correct conclusions of the report. But it does tell us something about the reporters and their comprehension of the situational dynamics of sailing at sea.
 
#40 ·
I believe the official report missed a key element of the bad seamanship -- they come very close to omitting the role of the Gulf Stream in any of the many bad decisions the skipper made.

In my post to the thread here shortly after the sinking I made the point that once the Bounty crossed into the Gulf Stream the "die was cast" and the choices open to the captain were limited to the actions he took.

Look at the charts in the report. They crossed the Stream in fair weather with a N'ly component wind. As the storm approached the winds clocked to NE, then E'ly. At this point Bounty is across the Stream , which in this area is 100 or so miles wide, and he can't go back to the New England coast because he has a building wind against current.

And he can't continue SE because his ship won't sail to weather. His choices are taking a S'ly course head on into the storm, or heading SW, which he did.

While technically correct, this statement from the report would have been more accurate from a navigational perspective it it said "pinning the vessel between the hurricane and the strong NE Current of the Gulf Stream." In this circumstance the land is more or less irrelevant.

By Saturday the Bounty was flirting with the eastern wall of the Stream. If they went any further west (away from the storm) they would have been in an even worse situation with 60 or more knots blowing right down the axis of the oncoming current.

The report does mention the GS....

....but it misses the real point of Bounty's brush with the Stream. A boat moving through a current isn't stressed by the current per se. It is stressed be large steep waves created by wind vs. current.

None of the above in any way changes the very correct conclusions of the report. But it does tell us something about the reporters and their comprehension of the situational dynamics of sailing at sea.
Unfortunately, there are very few at the USCG who know anything at all about sailing, sailing vessels and especially square rigged vessels.
I have gone through numerous COI's on tall ships, from a schooner built in 1906, to one built expressly to coast guard standards for charter in the 80's, and their lack of knowledge, as our licensing agency, was astounding.
I haven't read the report but, because of their general lack of knowledge of sailing, I would expect the focus of the investigation was seamanship related and sailing had little impact. Which may make sense, as the vessel was under power when things became catastrophic.
 
#42 ·
There was a fantastic series of articles by a former marine safety inspector written during the hearings. Whatever money was spent was worth it, for the lessons that those articles point out. In aviation we talk about the "accident chain" or series of events that had any one been changed the outcome may have been different. This one unfolds like an aviation accident in slow motion.

Those articles revealed though Cpt. Walbridge was an "experienced" tall ship Captain, that was a far as the experience on the boat went. A cult of "Experience" was built up around the man. It was almost a Jim Jones sort of situation on that boat. The rest of the crew relied far too heavily on Walbridge's experience. Only the First Mate spoke up at the pre departure meeting to say he objected to leaving port. It was the First Mate that finally convinced Walbridge to Issue the Mayday, but only moments before the boat foundered. At that point the boat had, by any standard definition been, sinking for over a day, but business as usual for Cpt Walbridge's vessel.

There was a long history of "normalization of risk", to the point that water coming in the boat faster than it could be pumped out did not alarm the crew according to testimony from these hearings. Emergency equipment was not tested or trained on because it was expensive and would get worn out. Dewatering pumps were equipped with cheap hose that collapsed when suction was applied. Home Depot products we knowingly used in lieu of marine grade products and the unknowing crew gladly accepted Walbridge's assertion it was "just as good".

Can you imagine you are below deck on a flooding boat, canibalizing parts from one stalled generator (that was required to run the pumps keeping you afloat) to get the other one started when they both quit and plunge you into pitch darkness? Oh BTW, you are being slammed by the leading edge of a Hurricane at the time? Yet, the situation was so "normal" the engineer (who had practically no engineering experience on a ocean going vessel) said he was not concerned? Amazingly, according to testimony at these hearings no one other than the 1st Mate had any concern about what was unfolding, because they knew Walbridge was an "Experienced" Captain.

The articles were reminiscent of the ones by Mark Bowen that formed the basis of his book and the movie Blackhawk Down.
 
#44 ·
There was a long history of "normalization of risk", to the point that water coming in the boat faster than it could be pumped out did not alarm the crew according to testimony from these hearings. Emergency equipment was not tested or trained on because it was expensive and would get worn out. Dewatering pumps were equipped with cheap hose that collapsed when suction was applied. Home Depot products we knowingly used in lieu of marine grade products and the unknowing crew gladly accepted Walbridge's assertion it was "just as good".
.
And the Captain asking, just before it sank... ""What went wrong? At what point did we lose control?" He still didnt know.

Just unbelievable.
 
#50 ·
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