Bounty Abandoned

I think his tactics would appear, in the calm of the cabin, to appear very sound, and I've no doubt that this sort of response had worked for him and the Bounty in the past. I think it was that this storm exceeded both his, and everyone else's expectations in the size it grew to, and that a long long storm would have increased the working of the ship's timbers, increased its' leakage rate, and would have put increased pressure on the fatigue life of both the pumps and the engine supplying the power. That's the problem.

In a far smaller excercise, I (or rather, a mate) pumped our way back from L'Aberwrach to Newlyn in slightly similar circumstances. An old wooden yawl (not Cleone, I hasten to add) in a NE6/7 beating through big 12' waves, Espanola had to have up to 100 strokes of a big whale gusher every five minutes. Luckily we only had 110 miles to make, and did it in 9.5 hours, changing pump-man every half hour or so. Now, double the distance, or triple it. Could we have carried on pumping through the night? Doubt it. An acquaintance of mine lost an old Hillyard through pumping fatigue in the Irish sea years ago in weather where the ability to get water out of the boat was being overtaken by the sea and rain getting in.

So its not the "we can ride it out as usual" I take issue with, rather the failure to consider "what may be different this time?" factor and does it have a bearing on the leaving or staying.

I've never been in a Hurricane, but from the experiences of others I know that getting to sea and either avoiding it totally, or staying in "the navigable quarter" if you can't are the only true solutions. However, if your gear gives out and you cannot pump fast enough....
 
Seagreen said:
a long long storm would have increased the working of the ship's timbers, increased its' leakage rate, and would have put increased pressure on the fatigue life of both the pumps and the engine supplying the power. That's the problem.

In a far smaller excercise, I (or rather, a mate) pumped our way back from L'Aberwrach to Newlyn in slightly similar circumstances. An old wooden yawl (not Cleone, I hasten to add) in a NE6/7 beating through big 12' waves, Espanola had to have up to 100 strokes of a big whale gusher every five minutes. Luckily we only had 110 miles to make, and did it in 9.5 hours, changing pump-man every half hour or so. Now, double the distance, or triple it. Could we have carried on pumping through the night? Doubt it. An acquaintance of mine lost an old Hillyard through pumping fatigue in the Irish sea years ago in weather where the ability to get water out of the boat was being overtaken by the sea and rain getting in.
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Really useful post for someone like me who hasn't ever had to deal with water sneaking in this manner on traditionally built boats. I'd read about Adlard Cole's boats leaking like crazy but I hadn't fully appreciated the implications. I bet I'm not the only one. Many thanks.
 
I have often pondered about the facination with "historical" re-enactment. "Aah, those were the days when things were done properly"

The Bounty was simply overwhelmed by huge seas, as would any ship of that type caught in such a storm. I wonder how many modern ships were lost?
 
interloper said:
Walbridge’s friends and former crew members described him as a skilled captain who had a good plan that didn’t work because of mechanical problems. The ship lost power, which meant it had no propulsion and could not pump out water, according to the vessel’s website.
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Thank you interloper for posting.

I'm just a humble amateur sailor who's been sailing a 27ft boat mostly coastal for just a few short years, and with no real experience of ships and the sea, so I'm not in any kind of position to pass comment, let alone criticise the decision of the captain to put to sea.

But it appears to me that the weakest point of the plan was the reliance on the ship's mechanical sytems to pump out water. What backup did the Bounty have? Auxilliary generators? Manual pumps and enough crew to work them?
 
Tomahawk said:
I have often pondered about the facination with "historical" re-enactment. "Aah, those were the days when things were done properly"

The Bounty was simply overwhelmed by huge seas, as would any ship of that type caught in such a storm. I wonder how many modern ships were lost?
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Whilst many ships of the origial Bounty's era were lost. The "replica" was actually not a replica at all. It was nearly twice as long, and had an engine plus quite a bit of modern technology. The original Bounty, under Captain Bligh tried to get to Tahiti via Cape Horn, was driven back, and sailed more than half way round the world to get there. Small vessels like the Bounty were capable of great voyages when properly managed. Bligh accepted the impossibility of battling high seas and contrary winds and took the long route.

The real issue with the "replica" was that it was deliberately taken to sea at a time when the hurricane was coming, and even if it had been left in harbour and damaged as a result, its crewmembers would have survived. In fact the ship left New London, which is about 100 miles ENE of New York, and was lost off Cape Hatteras, a few hundred miles to the south, indicating that it had been sailed almost directly towards the hurricane.
 
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/02/testimony-worker-saw-rot-during-bountys-repair

Testimony: Worker saw rot during Bounty's repair

By Aaron Applegate
The Virginian-Pilot
February 13, 2013

The wooden tall ship Bounty set sail toward Hurricane Sandy with an unknown amount of rot in its frame despite warnings from a shipwright that had recently worked on the boat, according to testimony heard Wednesday.

Todd Kosakowski, a project manager at Boothbay Harbor Shipyard in Maine, said the rot was found when replacing two interior planks the Bounty crew targeted for repair.

He testified on the second day of a Coast Guard hearing in Portsmouth into the Oct. 29 sinking of the Bounty during the hurricane, about 90 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. The Bounty's captain, Robin Walbridge, was never found. Another crew member died.

Kosakowski said that while the ship was in the yard in September and October, he informed Walbridge about the framing damage. Walbridge, he said, decided he would have it fixed the next time the Bounty was hauled out.

"I told him I was more than worried about what we found and voiced my concerns a couple of different times," he said.

Kosakowski said he told Walbridge "to pick and choose his weather and not use the vessel the way they'd used it recently."

He said it appeared as if Walbridge agreed. The Bounty had crossed the Atlantic on a trip to Europe in 2011.

Kosakowski said it was impossible to tell the severity of the rot because Walbridge did not want to open up the ship to inspect for more despite his suggestion to do so. "It was very quickly shot down by the captain," Kosakowski said. "That would have required a significant amount of time and money."

In one section, rotted framing fell out when a plank was removed, he said.

In at least one section, Bounty crew members painted damaged framing with white enamel paint before the new planks were installed, said Kosakowski, who doubted the paint would have any positive effect on the rot.

Kosakowski described Walbridge as "shocked" when he learned the condition of the wood framing partly because the shipyard had replaced it in a 2006 and 2007 overhaul of the Bounty.

Kosakowski said he asked Walbridge what he told Robert Hansen, owner of the Bounty, about the ship.

"He said he told Bob Hansen that he should get rid of the boat as soon as possible," Kosakowski said.

Hansen, who was at the hearing, wouldn't comment. He's declined to testify, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Kosakowski described 26 photos he'd taken of the repairs on the Bounty as he flipped through them. The photos were not displayed for observers. He said the photos of the framing showed mold-like material, cracks in the wood and an unusual burned or charred look to the wood.

He said in hindsight he wished he had informed the Coast Guard of the Bounty's condition.

Kosakowski said the rot could have contributed to the Bounty's sinking.

He said, "The strength of the vessel is the only thing that keeps it afloat."

Testimony Wednesday also shed light on postings to the Bounty's Facebook page that garnered much attention after the vessel was lost.

One of the posts, made before the ship was lost, called the trip that started while Sandy was looming a "calculated decision... NOT AT ALL... irresponsible or with a lack of foresight as some have suggested. The fact of the matter is... A SHIP IS SAFER AT SEA THAN IN PORT!"

Tracie Simonin, an administrator with HMS Bounty Organization LLC, which owns the Bounty, said Jim Salapatek of the Chicago area posted the comments. He's a crew member's father.

Reached at home, Salapatek said he wanted to alleviate concerns that were being raised on the Internet about the Bounty sailing toward a hurricane.

He said he'd sailed on the Bounty, knew the ship and had run the Facebook page for about a year and a half.

He said he wanted to convey that Bounty officials had seriously thought about the decision to set sail.

"I know this isn't a haphazard sail," he said. "It isn't just like cast off the lines and go."

Aaron Applegate, 757-222-5122,aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com
 
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/02/bounty-third-mate-testifies-water-pump-didnt-work

Bounty third mate testifies water pump didn't work

By Aaron Applegate
The Virginian-Pilot
February 16, 2013
PORTSMOUTH

Capt. Robin Walbridge called all hands into the navigational shack in the final hours of the tall ship Bounty.

It was the middle of the night. The engines and generators were dead. The bottom of the ship was flooded.

“Robin asked what went wrong,” Boatswain Laura Groves said.

She said Walbridge asked the crew to brainstorm, figure out “at what point did we lose control?”

“He wanted input from all of us,” she said. “I don’t know that anybody had any idea.”

Groves described the scene Friday in her testimony at the Coast Guard hearing into the sinking of the Bounty on Oct. 29 during Hurricane Sandy about 90 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras.

The Coast Guard rescued 14 crew members in high seas.

Walbridge was lost at sea. Crew member Claudene Christian died.

Third Mate Dan Cleveland also testified on Friday about what happened after the ship left New London, Conn., on Oct. 25 for St. Petersburg, Fla.

Cleveland and Groves said they didn’t have major concerns about sailing toward the hurricane because they trusted Walbridge’s judgment and the Bounty had been in rough weather before, including a typhoon in the Pacific Ocean.

Cleveland praised Walbridge’s calm demeanor and analytical approach and said he was always teaching the crew. “As a problem-solver, his mind always seemed to be two steps ahead of anyone else’s,” he said.

After two days of sailing southeastward, Walbridge changed the ship’s course to southwest in an attempt to cut across the approaching hurricane and get into the lee of Hatteras Island. The bilge pumps didn’t appear to be working right, Cleveland said, and water was rising below. The wind was getting heavier and the waves bigger.

He said Walbridge told him: “I believe we are losing the battle against the bilge water.”

Walbridge ordered the boat into a holding pattern known as heaving-to in an attempt to give the bilge pumps a chance to catch up on pumping water out.

“No one understood why they weren’t pumping water out like we were used to because the strainers were clean,” Cleveland said, referring to features that keep debris from fouling pumps.

Eventually, the incoming water choked the Bounty’s two engines and two generators.

The crew struggled with an emergency portable gas pump and couldn’t get it going long enough to make a difference.

A handheld anemometer registered wind at 90 knots before breaking.

Water was coming in two seams in the planking, making a hissing sound, Groves said. One plank was in the engine room. The other was in a mop closet.

Cleveland helped the crew prepare to abandon ship, guiding them from the navigational shack to the stern where others were crouching on the deck in survival suits and preparing to launch life rafts.

The Bounty rolled before the crew could evacuate, throwing everyone into the water. The ship’s rigging was still together, the masts and yards coming out of the water and slamming up and down, imperiling the swimming crew.

Cleveland and some others struggled to get free of the ship and grabbed onto a floating piece of wood. They found a life raft floating in its canister and inflated it. But the thick mitts on their survival suits made it hard to grab the rope that ran around the outside of the raft. The crew members had to use their teeth to pull the rope away from the raft so they could grasp it.

They struggled for about 45 minutes to get into the raft because their survival suits were filled with water, Groves said, and helped one another in.

Inside the covered raft, the group rested and sang a few sea shanties. Waves crashed into the raft, collapsing it for a moment before it could regain its shape.

Around dawn, a Coast Guard helicopter arrived, and a rescue swimmer helped the crew in the raft get hoisted to safety. Crew members in another raft also were rescued.

The Coast Guard hearing into the ship’s sinking resumes Monday in Portsmouth.

Aaron Applegate, 757-222-5122, aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com
 
Ultimately it comes back to the issue of whether a ship is safer at sea than in port during a hurricane. In my opinion the ship might well be safer from damage by being bashed against a quay or hit by another vessel if put to sea. but it is less safe from total loss, and the crew are certainly less safe sailing in a hurricane than they would be on land. Of course if the ship had a serious issue with rot then it definately should not have put to sea. The owner has used the Fith Amendment (against self incrimination) to avoid having to testify. What does that tell us?
 
http://hamptonroads.com/2013/02/tall-ship-captains-stunned-bounty-left-port

Tall ship captains stunned that the Bounty left port

By Aaron Applegate
The Virginian-Pilot
February 21, 2013

When Hurricane Sandy was forming in the Caribbean, Capt. Dan Moreland decided his square-rigged sailing ship, the Picton Castle, wasn't going anywhere soon.

Weather forecasts showed the late October storm was getting big, and it was impossible to know where it was going. Moreland postponed the Picton Castle's scheduled departure from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, for the South Pacific.

He was shocked to learn Capt. Robin Walbridge had taken the tall sailing ship Bounty to sea with the hurricane approaching, leaving New London, Conn., en route to St. Petersburg, Fla., he said.

"I can't imagine there being any reason at all for being out there," Moreland said. "It's mind-boggling."

He testified by phone from Tahiti on Wednesday during the Coast Guard hearing into the Bounty's Oct. 29 sinking about 90 miles off Cape Hatteras.

Walbridge was lost at sea, and another crew member, Claudene Christian died. The Coast Guard rescued 14 people.

Capt. Jan Miles of the Pride of Baltimore II, who also testified Wednesday, said he was stunned Walbridge had set sail. Miles' ship rode out Sandy docked in Baltimore.

He said one of his goals is to expose the Pride II to the least amount of heavy weather as possible.

Both Moreland and Miles said they didn't believe a ship such as the Bounty is safer at sea than at port during a hurricane. Walbridge had told the Bounty crew one reason the ship was leaving was because it would be safer at sea.

Miles wrote an open letter to Walbridge after the sinking, calling his decision to sail "reckless in the extreme."

Moreland said the Bounty probably could have tied up safely in New London or gone to New Bedford, Mass., or Mystic Seaport, Conn., to weather the storm in port.

The purpose of the hearing is to figure out what caused the Bounty to sink and how to prevent a similar event. It also will examine whether there was any misconduct, inattention to duty, negligence or willful violation of the law.

The hearing, in Portsmouth, was scheduled to conclude after testimony today.

Aaron Applegate, 757-222-5122aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com
 
Norman_E said:
Ultimately it comes back to the issue of whether a ship is safer at sea than in port during a hurricane. In my opinion the ship might well be safer from damage by being bashed against a quay or hit by another vessel if put to sea. but it is less safe from total loss, and the crew are certainly less safe sailing in a hurricane than they would be on land. Of course if the ship had a serious issue with rot then it definately should not have put to sea. The owner has used the Fith Amendment (against self incrimination) to avoid having to testify. What does that tell us?
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Spot on.

Vanity and turning a blind eye to serious defects put a lot of people in danger, when they could have been ashore in safety.
 
awol said:
It tells us that the owner has declined to testify, possibly under the advisement of his legal advisers and insurer. It certainly should not be construed as an indicator of wrong-doing.
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But allowing a ship to go to sea on the edge of a Hurricane, with known rotten timbers, while one stays ashore in a comfy chair is something else...
 
Awol.

what's judgemental about the bleeding obvious ?!

I wouldn't have set foot on that tatty ship, and would have done everything possible to get relatives or friends off; even in a well founded ship let alone a rotten square rigger, setting off ' chasing Hurricanes ' is suicide, or manslaughter on the uninitiated crew.

Does the name ' Marques ' ring a bell ? That square rigger had a deckhouse ' secured ' by grp sheeting, over 20 people were killed when she met heavy weather.

I am a great fan of Square riggers, but modern replicas have to get it right to Alan Villiers / Cape Horn standards!

Andy
 
Seajet said:
Awol.
what's judgemental about the bleeding obvious ?!
I wouldn't have set foot on that tatty ship, and would have done everything possible to get relatives or friends off; even in a well founded ship let alone a rotten square rigger, setting off ' chasing Hurricanes ' is suicide, or manslaughter on the uninitiated crew.
Does the name ' Marques ' ring a bell ? That square rigger had a deckhouse ' secured ' by grp sheeting, over 20 people were killed when she met heavy weather.
I am a great fan of Square riggers, but modern replicas have to get it right to Alan Villiers / Cape Horn standards!
Andy
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I am in no way condoning any aspect of the Bounty sinking - decisions were made by people and these are being examined in the enquiry, unfortunately without the benefit of Seajet's clarity of thought.
There has been conflicting evidence about the rot and its extent and its contribution to the water ingress. I will await the enquiry's conclusions.

I am not entirely sure what the "Marques" has to do with it. She sank almost instantly after a knockdown and a "rogue" wave, with the loss of 19 lives (according to Wiki). She did have an American skipper though so that, at least, is common.

There are those who would consider the idiocy of setting off transatlantic in a 22' lift keeler as "bleeding obvious" - others would disagree.
 
Seajet said:
Does the name ' Marques ' ring a bell ? That square rigger had a deckhouse ' secured ' by grp sheeting, over 20 people were killed when she met heavy weather.



Andy
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That was interesting! I had completely forgotten the incident or was never aware of it until now. I tried to find the MAIB report but couldn't (having a quiet afterlunch at work). Two reports I could find, one said she had a poorly fitted hatch left over from her fruit cargoing days, the other just said open hatch through which the sea rushed in when she was knocked onto her beam ends by a sudden squall. Nothing about deckhouses or GRP sheeting ... ?
 
I have the impression that both in the case of the Bounty and in the case of the Picton Castle a few years back (when a crew member was lost overboard), that the pressure of a schedule and the financial consequences of meeting or not meeting that schedule had far too much influence on the descisions of the captains to set sail.

It is fantastically expensive to maintain a tall ship. It is expensive to properly man them with enough competent crew. They rely on income from sponsors. Sponsors expect the ship to show up on time in the right place.

I think ulitmately this is the real reason the Bounty set sail when she did.
 
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