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A Sea Story: the Wreck of the Replica HMS Bounty
An anonymous reader writes "On October 25, 2012, as residents of the U.S. east coast made frantic preparations for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, the captain of the HMS Bounty (a replica tall ship constructed fifty years earlier for the Marlon Brando film Mutiny on the Bounty) made a foolish decision, with the assent of his crew, to proceed with a scheduled voyage from New London, CT for St. Petersburg FL. CNN's Thom Patterson has written a long story with the benefit of survivor testimony to the NTSB and U.S. Coast Guard. Captain Robin Walbridge thought he could outrun the hurricane, and besides, he'd 'sailed into hurricanes before.' The crew (officially there were no passengers, a fact that allowed the ship to evade certain safety regulations) consisted of tall ship enthusiasts with widely varying amounts of nautical experience, perhaps taken by the vast historical literature on the great age of sailing. A day and a half into the voyage, Captain Walbridge altered his plan of sailing east of the storm, to sailing south and west of it. A day later, the Bounty was less than 200 miles from the eye of the storm; the engine room started to flood, and the pumps were jammed with debris being torn off by the storm's 70 mph winds. The end came early next day, the Bounty was knocked down by a huge wave, tossing the captain and several crew members overboard. The Coast Guard rescued fourteen of the crew members, but Claudene Christian (an adventure-loving novice who had enlisted as crew a few months before) was dead, and Captain Walbridge's body has not been found."
Nature bats last
...because they were rescued only after a last-ditch effort to call for help by rigging a ham radio to send an e-mail to their home office?
Always been like that, always will be like that.
It was sailed for 50 years and only sunk because Capt Dumbass sailed it into a hurricane. Pretty good for a museum piece.
No, it doesn't. Just because a bunch of people who took a risk died doesn't mean we need to make laws to stop it in the future.
When you go to sea you take some risk, under any circumstances. People doing that should take responsibility for it. It's not the coast guard or the government's job to make sure people who make stupid decisions don't get hurt.
If you knew as much as you think you do, you'd know that marine VHF is good for a maximum range about 110 km, with antennas at both ends mounted high and good conditions. The Bounty sank about 100 miles (160 km) offshore. There weren't a lot of other ships to contact in the area of the hurricane, I'd guess.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Maybe, maybe not ... but the safest place for a ship to be is generally not sailing towards a hurricane.
Yes she was
A live summary of the sinking can be found at http://blog.halifaxshippingnews.ca/2012/10/tall-ship-bounty-in-trouble.html
Mario Vittone also gave a good summary of the hearings http://gcaptain.com/bounty-hearings-chief-mates-testifies
The captain meant well, but his ship wasn't the measure of the dreams that sailed it.
People do stupid shit, and put themselves in danger -- and they have a right to do so. We don't need to change the law in this case.
His crew understood or should have understood the risks.
The knowledge of the tragedy should serve as a bigger deterrant than any to sailors who would otherwise be so fool-hardy as to sail within reach of a hurricane.
I wasn't the one who brought up VHF, which wouldn't have helped, as the GP's flippant "use channel 16" claimed.
The article makes clear that their efforts to communicate using their marine radio were unsuccessful, while using the ham radio (almost certainly HF) worked.
BTW, I have an Extra class ham license, and am well aware of the capabilities and limitations of the various bands.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
For large ships, where large is defined as unable to be easily lifted out of the water and stored on land, it is safer for them to be out to sea.
But out to sea does not mean in a hurricane. Out to sea means leaving in advance of the storm such that the ship can get well away from the most severe weather. Large commercial ships go nowhere near these sorts of weather events, it's better to sail a week out of the way to go around than risk losing a large boat.
Dude wanted to get where he was going. Had he left and gone due east, towards Europe, the boat would have been no where near this storm when it hit the eastern seaboard. He could have then turned around and gone to his destination, perhaps a week late, but alive after a nice cruise.
First off, I don't consider myself a sailor, but I have crossed the Atlantic Ocean a few times on my 48 ft boat.
So, let's see: If you are caught in a storm, there's no way going near a coast. Waves will throw you onto the beach (if you are lucky) or onto a cliff. In first case you'll kill a few of your crew. In second, you'll kill all, including yourself.
Same goes for a harbor. No way even trying to come near.
That said, I never encountered a hurricane, and I wonder if the Bounty's captain was either incompetent (as to read forecasts), or simply overwhelmed by the speed of the hurricane (which in a way implies incompetence as well.)
In either way, once caught in a storm, you certainly do not try to reach a harbor.
There are fewer illiterates than people who can't read.
Local media reported here that the ship was in for service at Boothbay, Maine before this occured. The captain was informed that the ship's framing timbers were rotted and needed replacement. They opted to not have the repairs performed and sailed off into a hurricaine.
There were folks dressed in colonial costumes and it was quite the sight.
Colonial dress? Wasn't the Bounty His Majesy's Ship of the Line? The actors/actresses should have been dressed in costume common to Portsmith (Great Britain, not New Hampshire), or perhaps nude, as the natives of New Guinea.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
The loophole that allowed this ship to sail needs closed and the other such ships need safely regulated to museum duty.
The solution to every problem is not more laws, more regulation, and more bureaucrats. If we are going to progress as a species, we need fewer laws that protect people from their own stupidity, so Darwinism can take its course.
There are. It doesn't do any good if the radio doesn't work, or the antenna blew down, though.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I have to agree. I'm all for regulating passenger travel, because passengers don't have the opportunity to go do a walk-around of their aircraft before boarding, and even if they did they wouldn't know what to look for.
However, if some idiot wants to take their Cessna up in a hurricane then my main concern is for the home that he ends up crashing into. That isn't as much of a concern for a ship out at sea.
As long as everybody on the ship could be expected to understand the risks they were taking, then it was their choice to make.
I cannot be sure how seaworthy the Bounty was. I never saw it, except in photos or video. Photos and videos don't really tell much - a guy needs to get into the woodwork, study everything above and below the waterline to decide something like that.
But, I propose that the ship went down due to inept seamanship.
Debris clogged the bilge pumps? Really? I heard over the ship's loudspeakers, many times during five years of sea duty, "Secure for heavy seas. Secure all missile hazards." Seamen and Petty Officers would go to work, making certain that heavy objects were bolted down, lashed down, chocked, or whatever. Chiefs and officers would come around, inspecting, searching for even small objects that might be free to go flying, possibly putting an eye out. Yes, even pens and pencils were secured. Personal property was stowed in a locker, that locker bolted to the deck, where it had withstood many another day of heavy seas. The ONLY missile hazards permissible, were the bodies of your ship mates!
You got shit clogging the bilge pumps - you're gonna die, simple as that. The most seaworthy of ships is always taking on water, even on calm days, or in port. The crew gets an idea of how much, pretty quickly. Tied up to a pier, they may have to pump a hundred gallons of water out every month, on a smaller ship. On a huge naval ship, they'll get that much condensation!
FTFA: The engine room itself worried Bounty's newly hired engineer, Chris Barksdale. He thought it needed a good cleaning. Sawdust and wood chips littered the floor. Everything just looked old.
That sawdust and wood chips is more than enough to spell the Bounty's doom. It doesn't take much to choke the impellor of a bilge pump. A chip the size of a small person's thumb is sufficient. Strainers help, but strainers can be choked as well.
FTFA: Below deck, crew members suffered from seasickness. In the galley, the motion pulled tables from their hinges.
Definitely not good - the article repeatedly mentions rotting wood. Someone should have been aware that the tables weren't securely fastened down. What of all the rest of the ship's equipment?
FTFA: Wood chips and sawdust from the dirty floor were floating in the rising water and clogging the pumps. They had to be shut off constantly to clear the strainers. Scornavacchi and Adam Prokosh used trash bags – and their bare hands – to scoop debris.
As the scramble to pump water off the ship grew more desperate, deckhand Mark Warner smashed the engine room door open so he could move a portable gasoline powered pump up to the deck.
But the pump wouldn't work. According to testimony, no one had been trained to use it.
Around 7 p.m., one of the ship's two generators failed.
At this point, the ship is dead. She can only take on more water, and sink lower into the water, becoming ever more unresponsive to the crew's input.
Inept seamanship killed the Bounty, plain and simple. The Captain and First Mate failed to do their jobs in preparing for sea, the crew failed, and the ship died. The ship was missing a slave driving Boatswain's Mate to drive the crew into performing the proper preparations.
Thank God that the Navy has those knuckle dragging Deck Apes to ensure that Navy ships don't founder in the same way!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Actually, that's exactly what he did. Reported in the first section of the article. Except you don't "hold a vote" on a ship. The captain tells you where the ship is going and you have the chance to quit if you feel it's too dangerous. The crew had that chance and nobody decided to quit.
Yes, the captain sounds reckless. If he had survived it seems likely his license would be in jeopardy, as it should be. If he did knowingly take an unseaworthy vessel to sea there are already laws against that.
They also appear to have foundered earlier than necessary because they lost power. As my sailing instructor drilled into us, you're in a sailboat. The engines are auxiliaries. Being beam on to the sea in a storm is not a happy situation, and, in a sailing ship, having your engines die isn't a good reason for it.
The captain sounds like an irresponsible thrill seeker, and the crew, although they were all supposedly experienced sailors, does seem to have neglected a lot. The article implies throughout that it was some kind of hero worship.
The Bounty was originally a merchant ship but she was purchased by the Royal Navy and named the Bounty. Proper dress aboard the Bounty would be late 18th century Royal Navy.
Well, about that...
-- Bounty hearings.
"The summary makes it sound like they were exploiting a loophole in the regulations or something. "
There's more...including
the rest of it is an interesting read, with more detail than the CNN article. No, they weren't an experienced crew, and yes, they were playing loose with the rules.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I spent 8 years in the Navy, 2 of which were as a deck seaman on an LHA (800 footer). 4 years were spent in Norfolk VA doing coastal water patrol and the other 2 were spent as harbor security on Guam. I have experienced a few storms underway and i can assure you there is nothing good to be had in a hurricane at sea. Getting underway to escape a harbor (and sail around the storm) is common practice Getting underway and deliberately sailing into a storm to increase speed on a janky vessel with a crew of limited knowledge and experience is simple incompetence.
Sawdust and wood chips littered the floor ... Thank God that the Navy has those knuckle dragging Deck Apes to ensure that Navy ships don't founder in the same way!
My uncle was a carpenter. I never saw sawdust or wood chips on his workshop floor unless he was in the middle of cutting or drilling.
Of course in his youth he was in the Navy, destroyers, WW2. When I asked what he did he said that they maintained the ship and its equipment, cleaned the ship and its equipment, and drilled for damage control and battle. He added that on occasion they were allowed to eat or sleep and that on very rare occasions they went into battle (Pacific, '42-'45, over a dozen battle stars).
He told me he learned to immediately take care of the smallest things when he was in the Navy. That the saying "Navy regs are written in blood" is true, that many regs are the way they are because someone died doing things differently. Given the unforgiving nature of the sea I'm surprised the professional civilian sailors (officers of the Bounty at least) did not understand that sloppiness can get you killed at sea.
Just because the crew isn't properly trained is no excuse for the officers not seeing to it that things are properly ship-shape!
If a crew member is not properly trained it is the officer's responsibility to quickly remedy that. It doesn't matter if the crew member is paid or a volunteer. You go to sea, you learn to do your job properly, period.
I've looked at the decision to leave port. I can't really fault that. Navy captains routinely make that same decision. The Coast Guard, likewise.
The decision to turn south and west to follow the storm seems somewhat less responsible. But, again, Navy and Coast Guard captains do it, with reason.
The captain's failure in this instance centers around housekeeping and seaworthiness. If the ship not truly seaworthy, if housekeeping is a threat to that seaworthiness, then the captain must rectify the situation, or refrain from going to sea and/or chasing that storm. This captain chose to run his ship close to it's extreme performance parameters, despite the fact that the ship wasn't "ship shape".
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I have worked on navy and civilian ships, and I can't imagine going to sea with sawdust or wood chips in the engine room. Doing it in heavy weather is unthinkable and the thought sends a shiver up my spine.
Maintaining a ship takes time and dedication. In the time of the tall ships they had the boatswain and the carpenters. Today we have the chief and the engineering staff. An experienced seaman in either position would probably have stopped this trip, and that is one very important reason that the chief should be on equal standing with the captain.
They do not necessarily use the internal framing that would have made the original Bounty worthy of Cape Horn. They do not necessarily use the same materials (esp, type of wood) that would have made the original Bounty worthy of Cape Horn. They do not necessarily do maintenance that would have kept the original Bounty seaworthy for 20 years. And they do not necessarily take the ship out of service when rot and decay of natural materials cause skyrocketing maintenance costs to make the vessel un-economical to operate.
This is a common tragedy among both replica and historical tallships: the costs of maintaining them in condition for rough weather are astronomical and the receipts from tourists, day sails, and historical programs are rarely close to those costs. You make compromises, like being sure to steer clear of rough weather because you know how much more water comes in when the seams work, but you try to get as much sea time as possible. Spend enough time at sea, and maybe you start discounting the fundamental structural weakness. Fundamental structural weakness means that one point of failure, which might otherwise be inconvenient, becomes catastrophic. I can see myself in the crew's position, and I know that I would have made the choice to stay aboard.