HMS Bounty

[shane_mayhem]

Just saw the news that the crew of the HMS Bounty has abandoned ship off the coast of North Carolina. All crew are accounted for and are in survival suits in a lifeboat. The Coast Guard is en route and I hope they get to them soon

Comments

[duikermeisie]

Two crewmembers are still missing--they were knocked overboard by a wave while trying to board the lifeboats--and the Bounty herself has foundered.

Damn and blast.

[duikermeisie]

If the report on CNN is correct, Bounty was trying to sail from the northeast (Philadelphia?) to St Petersburg FL, and had been in touch with the NHC daily. To which I say, as a professional mariner, WHAT THE FUCKITY FUCKING FUCK???? When you have a hurricane anywhere close to your area, you get the hell out of dodge, which for them would have been to get to a harbour of refuge BEFORE it hits, and you NEVER stay on the north side of the storm, and you NEVER cross the T! They sailed right into it, lost their ship, and may have killed two of their crew.

The skipper made the right decision by sending out the distress call when it was, and abandoning when it was clear that the sea was going to win. Fine. Still was unbelievably fucking stupid to have tried to sail past that thing.

[shane_mayhem]

The thing to remember is that for a lot of wooden sailing ships, it's safer at sea in a storm than in port. Neither is safe. But in port, she definitely would have been smashed up. Of course, it's always a risk of life. But you can't know what the captain knew, what information he was going on, and what exactly led up to the emergency. Most reports state that the generator went out and the ship lost power, including the pumps of course. Did the generator go out due to the storm, or was there another factor? In any case, the crew did everything right in the emergency. With the water well over Bounty's cap and taff rail, they waited to abandon, as we are all taught, "when the ship abandons you." I obviously wasn't there and I'm not a captain by any means, but it's making me angry, all of the people who know nothing about the tall ship community so quick to criticize the maneuvers the captain was making and the crew themselves for being "idiots" when in reality, we don't know exactly what happened and we might not for days or

[duikermeisie]

I'm not blaming the victims (crew), any more than I would blame the crane operator on the Deepwater Horizon for the explosion. I know firsthand how damn difficult it is to be in a situation like that, to make the judgement call and to face the pressure from the beach. I DO blame whoever made the mad, lunatic, asinine decision to sail the vessel straight into a tropical cyclone

[shane_mayhem]

As far as we know right now, it was the captain's decision. The captain and crew were receiving weather information every four hours, and nobody knows exactly what happened when they made the turn. A lot of conjecture about who was behind the decision is not helpful right now. Anyone can sit back and call someone lunatic and asinine but the fact remains that we don't have all the information and the captain is still missing. You can think whatever you want. I'm not saying I know what caused this, either. I'm not saying that I know what was behind the decisions or what influenced them. I'm saying that, after suffering through all of the fucktarded Twitter comments as we were following this live trying to figure out what was happening to a ship and crew that we love, I've had it with the judgement calls. I'm waiting until the investigation is closed.

[shane_mayhem]

I apologize for sounding harsh. It's been a rough 48 hours for us, and I can't even imagine what it's been like for the crew and their families...