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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The HMS Bounty

I live on a hill, there are no tall trees near my house.  Which means that when all is said and done I'm pretty well protected.

Once upon a time, I think when I was in summer camp and my family took me out for a day with them, I did a few things that one doesn't usually do.  I road the narrow gauge railroad, I walked around on the Gazela, which was at the time the oldest and largest square rigged ship still sailing.  (I think they might have repaired one that was older [there were definitely older ones still being towed at the time], or built one that was larger, or both, since then.) and I saw the HMS Bounty coming in under full sail.

I don't know for sure which one I saw (apparently there were two reconstructed for the different film versions) but given that one is currently serving as a Chinese tourist attraction and the other was built near here I have a guess.

I think the one I saw is the one that just sank in the storm.

the Bounty sinking
Picture by US Coast Guard

The crew had 16 members.  14 were rescued.  The body of another was recovered.  The captain remains missing.  As of an article posted this morning, the Coast Guard is hopeful that the Captain will be found and found alive.  The article also contains a different picture, also provided by the Coast Guard, of the ship sinking.
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3 comments:

  1. FiredrakeOctober 30, 2012 at 12:22 PM

    A thing I'm curious about: roughly half the mainstream-media stories I've seen about this (as opposed to blog comments and posts) haven't mentioned her replica status, implying that this was the original ship. Is it the same with the ones you've read?

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    Replies
    1. chris the cynicOctober 30, 2012 at 12:30 PM

      I haven't been paying that close attention to that because I'm more concerned about the crew (I first heard about it when the 15th member had been found and was unresponsive but not yet declared dead) but I don't think there's been a lot of stuff pointing out that the ship is a replica. I don't remember hearing it in the story I saw on TV at all.

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    2. AmaryllisOctober 30, 2012 at 2:19 PM

      But.. wasn't the original ship destroyed after the original mutiny?

      I didn't even know there'd been a replica, let alone two. But when I found out that our USS Constellation was the 1854 version and not the genuine 1797 sloop, I lost all faith in historic ships anyway.

      I hope that last crewmember is okay, I haven't really been following this one.

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