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HMS Bounty sinking off US coast

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  • #31
    Originally posted by RustyBattleship View Post
    I was just reading in this morning's paper that Claudene Christian was actually a direct descendant of Fletcher Christian that led the mutiny.
    How ironic that she was actually a direct descendant as the lead mutineer, Fletcher Christian, who set in motion the original Bounty's takeover in the South Pacific in 1789.

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    • #32
      Originally posted by dave lukins View Post
      I'm not too sure if a ship such as the Bounty has the ability to 'hove to' as shown in the text books. One of our sailing illuminaries will no doubt put us in the picture on that. ;)
      The best way is to set a sea anchor and oppose it with a storm gib, relatively easy on a keeler yacht but I'm not sure about it being done on a ship of that size though. Anyways, I doubt they had enough crew to pull it off.
      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

      Leibniz

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      • #33
        Rescue swimmers receive DFCs for HMS Bounty rescue | Navy Times | navytimes.com

        Rescue swimmer Randy Haba was standing duty Oct. 28 at Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, N.C. It had been four days since Hurricane Sandy made landfall in Jamaica. People up and down the East Coast were hunkered down in advance of the storm, and the aviation survival technician second class didn’t anticipate a busy shift.

        But about 80 nautical miles east of Cape Hatteras, N.C., the HMS Bounty was caught in the storm and slowly sinking.

        The Coast Guard initially hoped to wait until morning to rescue the tall ship’s crew, Haba said, but the Bounty was falling apart. So, in the early morning of Oct. 29, Haba put on hisdry suit and boarded a helo.

        “We took off and went straight into the clouds,” Haba said.

        A second helicopter would join efforts soon after, with AST3 Daniel Todd on board.

        Haba and Todd would rescue a total of 14 of the Bounty’s 16 crew members over a few hours, actions that earned each of them a Distinguished Flying Cross, presented June 26 in Portsmouth, Va. Twenty-three other Coast Guardsmen were also recognized for the rescue.

        The Bounty left Oct. 25 from New London, Conn., bound for St. Petersburg, Fla. Its captain, Robin Walbridge, reportedly believed he could sail around the storm.

        It was still dark when the first helo took off from Elizabeth City; with the heavy rain and wind, the crew was flying by instruments, Haba said. After 90 minutes or so they descended through the cloud cover, about 200 to 250 feet above the water, to get eyes on the ocean.

        They spotted strobes and checked each one for survivors. They found one Bounty crew member floating in the roiling ocean. Haba was lowered into the water below, where 30-foot waves pounded against him and kept him from reaching the crew member, he said. In his third attempt he finally got to the man, fastening a strap around his chest. The helo lifted them up.

        But there were 15 more people in the ocean. After not finding anyone in the rest of the strobe lights, the helo took Haba near a life raft. Haba disconnected from his line and went into the ocean. In a separate helo, Todd was lowered into the ocean to go after Bounty crew members floating in a second raft.

        The swimmers braved gale-force winds and swells from all directions, Todd said.

        “It was like [being inside] a washing machine,” he added.

        When he got to the raft, Todd found six crew members and started putting them in a rescue basket, one by one. Waves would flip him in a somersault as he swam. After rescuing two crew members, a wave flipped the entire raft over.

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        • #34
          There is absolutely no doubt that these Coast Guard Rescue swimmers are beyond any simple description dropping into an ocean in weather like that. Of course have to also heap praise on those who stayed in the helo yet made the flight out in the storm. I don't like flying in storms so just doing that is unbelievable to me.

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          • #35
            Update: Captain made

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            • #36
              Never understood how some people could sue for situations like this? That lady had a CHOICE to go on there noone twisted her arm! Now her mother is sueing for $70M??? Money wont buy her back.
              RIP Charles "Bob" Spence. 1936-2014.

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              • #37
                Just because you are the Captain doesn't always mean you know what you are doing. Not the first time a Captain has made a bad decision despite the information/options given him.

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                • #38
                  Report: Risk-taking and inexperience sank tall ship Bounty | Navy Times | navytimes.com
                  There are many reasons the tall ship HMS Bounty, made famous in the 1962 seafaring classic “Mutiny on the Bounty,” sank off the coast of North Carolina in 2012. Chief among them, according to a Coast Guard investigation: the captain’s decision to sail into a well-forecast hurricane.

                  The attraction ship took on 10 feet of water on Oct. 29, 2012, more than 100 miles offshore in what became a high-stakes rescue mission as Hurricane Sandy plowed into the East Coast. Coast Guard helicopters from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, rescued 14 crew members and found the body of a 15th; the captain remains lost at sea.

                  The investigator found that excessive risk-taking, on top of the HMS Bounty’s worn-out condition and the crew’s inexperience with harsh weather, were to blame for the tragedy.

                  “Failure to adequately assess these conditions when making operational decisions, which are magnified in an operating environment that is significantly more hazardous than normal such as an inbound hurricane or major storm, can have disastrous results,” Capt. Jonathan Burton, the Coast Guard’s director of inspections and compliance, wrote in his endorsement of the report, which was released June 12.

                  The 93-page report opens a porthole into the ship’s final days, with new details about the captain’s decision to sail into the gathering storm and the repercussions of that fateful choice.

                  The official report also concluded that HMS Bounty’s official designation as a recreational vessel was misclassified. From the way the 108-long tall ship sailed on the open ocean, it should have qualified as a small passenger or sailing school vessel, which must meet higher safety standards.

                  The ship, originally built for “Mutiny on the Bounty,” had been operating as an educational attraction, welcoming tourists aboard at its home port in Greenport, New York, and traveling for events since 1993.

                  Bounty's last days
                  It had been three days since the 108-foot ship, a replica of the 18th century Royal Navy ship of the same name, set sail on Oct. 25, 2012, from New London, Connecticut, for an event in St. Petersburg, Florida. Hurricane Sandy had reached full force just one day earlier, 125 miles from the Bahamas and heading north toward the East Coast.

                  The vessel’s leaders were monitoring the storm, according to the report, so ship captain Robin Waldridge called a meeting to explain his plan before shoving off.

                  “The plan was to sail out to the east to monitor the track of the hurricane, and then to choose what course to take, as he believed that, during a storm, a ship was safer at sea than in port,” Cmdr. Kevin Carroll, the lead investigator, wrote in his summary.

                  Waldridge gave his crew the opportunity to leave if they weren’t comfortable with his plan, Carroll wrote. None took it.

                  Two days into the trip, forecasts predicted Hurricane Sandy would turn west and hit New Jersey. However, Waldridge decided to alter Bounty’s course from east-southeastto southwest, putting it directly in the storm’s path, the investigation found.

                  Higher seas streamed into the ship’s hold on the new course. Electrical power flickered. With the hydraulic pumps unable to keep up with the flooding, Waldridge made a plan with the local Coast Guard to abandon ship at daylight on Oct. 29. But Bounty nearly capsized around 4:30 a.m., forcing an early evacuation into 25-foot life rafts.

                  Fourteen of the 16 crew members were recovered by Coast Guard search-and-rescue personnel. Deckhand Claudene Christian did not survive the evacuation, and Waldridge was lost at sea.

                  Aviation Safety Technician 2nd Class Randy Haba and AST3 Daniel Todd each received the Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing the crew in 18-foot seas as 40 mph winds swirled around them.

                  In the aftermath of the sinking, the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board held two weeks of hearings in 2013 to get to the bottom of the sinking. In addition to risk-management issues and the failure of the water pumps, crew members testified that Bounty’s hull was sealed with a hardware-store products, rather than the marine-grade sealant used on ships meant for the open water.

                  An NTSB report noted the wooden vessel took on water even in good conditions, according to The Associated Press. Additionally, shipyard workers who had repaired Bounty testified the vessel had a decaying frame before leaving port weeks before it sank.

                  In the Coast Guard investigation, Carroll wrote that because the HMS Bounty Organization — the ship’s owner — chose to register the ship as an attraction vessel, the Coast Guard inspected it as a pierside tourist attraction, rather than checking load-line standards and stability as it would for seagoing vessels.

                  While the Coast Guard’s report put the deceased Waldridge ultimately at fault, it recommended that the commandant review policy on inspecting recreational vessels.

                  “While it may have made little difference in the ultimate outcome of the Bounty tragedy given the overriding issues of poor risk application, the Coast Guard should examine if legislative, regulatory or policy changes are needed so that other vessels like the Bounty are maintained and operated in a safe manner,” the report said.

                  Burton also recommended that, in the unlikely event the HMS Bounty Organization buys a new ship, the organization should adhere to a policy of operating based on expert consensus when sea conditions are dangerous, as well as hire a professional engineer to deal with problems on board.

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