Sandy Sinks HMS Bounty, Knocks Off Gawker Websites 238
Black Parrot writes "Several news sites are reporting that the 1962 replica of the HMS bounty was lost at sea due to hurricane Sandy, about 90 miles off North Carolina. The latest news I find says 14 of 16 crew rescued, one drowned, and the Captain still missing." And on land, the combination of wind and water surges knocked off Gawker sites and the Huffington Post for a time, and forced the evacuation of NYU's Langone Medical Center. Did it affect you?
Re:HMS Bounty (Score:2, Interesting)
The woman who dies was decended from Fletcher Christian, and Capt. Robin still hasn't been found. Those of us who live and work on these boats are still hoping to find a long loved and respected member of our community. As far as the Captain's experience, the coast guard went to him for the sail training program for the Eagle.
Re:WTF were they even doing at sea? (Score:4, Interesting)
WTF were they even at sea for?
Ships (usually) move a lot faster than houses, so you simply sail out of the way... unless you have an equipment failure during the escape. Then you sink/die of course, because suddenly you're stationary. Its almost impossible to sink a boat that's underway in the modern radio era, even if its an ancient replica. Safest place to be when a hurricane is on the way is on a ship, because in about 12 to 24 hours you'll be somewhere sunny and pleasant instead of in a hurricane, and if you get a couple days warning that is not too difficult to get 12 hours away... I used to get endless shit from landlubbers when I was serious contemplating doing the liveaboard sailboat thing about hurricanes "What'll you do when a hurricane hits your harbor" "Probably drinking a margarita sitting on a sunny beach 300 miles away, what are you going to be doing when a hurricane hits your home city?" "Grr..."
I was a real small time sailboat sailor but even I know their "killer" (literally) mistake was not traveling in a convoy. So the mainmast snaps off or you spring a hopeless leak, who cares, everyone move from boat #4 to boat #27 and we'll continue along the way. Its more fun to sail in a group of friends anyway. Probably they were too scared of low visibility to escape in a group, if the odds of collision are 2% in heavy seas and dense fog, and the odds of sinking are 0.001% then you go it alone. In slashdot IT terms this is a Redundant Array of Inexpensive (LOL) Sailboats, but if its foggy you'll get massive filesystem corruption.
In all honesty quite a few "killed by hurricane" stories are REALLY "killed during hurricane" stories that have nothing to do with the weather, they'd be just as dead without the storm. Very few sailors are killed by hurricanes compared to landlubbers I'd feel much safer on a boat than on land.
Until they come out with a formal report we won't know what happened, but I'm guessing they were doing a hell of a lot better than the landlubbers until something very critical failed in an unanticipated manner.
Re:HMS Bounty (Score:4, Interesting)
One bit of Bligh's reputation is secure. He was one helluva a seaman. There are damned few sailors in history who could have accomplished what he managed to do; sailing and navigating a launch with eighteen loyal crewmen 3,600 nautical miles to Timor with only one casualty (from a native attack). It is one of the great feats of maritime history.
I think most historians long ago centered most of the blame on Fletcher Christian. As you say, Bligh was a man of his times, and in those days, where you might spend a year or longer at sea, if you did not maintain absolute discipline, it was likely no one would ever see home again.
Re:last post (Score:4, Interesting)
There was a plenty of warning of the scale and scope of this storm before the Bounty left port. This wasn't a case of it being caught unprepared in harbour with a hurricane bearing down on it trying to get to sea. This captain made a decision to put this ship into incredible danger. A ship which is 400 years out of date in technology and used as a school ship to teach sailing.
This was not the right decision.