The HMS Bounty experienced its final moments during Hurricane Sandy. Did any passengers survive the wreckage?
Lieutenant Wes McIntosh of the U.S. Coast Guard was watching Sunday Night Football with his seven-person flight crew on October 29, 2012. Around 9:30 p.m., his phone rang. It was the Coast Guard command center, alerting him that they’d received a call from the owner of a ship that was floundering in a ferocious storm off the coast of North Carolina. It was taking on water, having generator problems, and requesting assistance. By 11 p.m., McIntosh and crew were airborne in their turboprop plane, heading east.
Locating the ship on radar would be impossible in such rough weather, so McIntosh and his copilot, Mike Myers, pulled on night-vision goggles. The skies were clear for the moment, a full moon fixed above, but directly ahead, McIntosh could see a sharp wall of dark clouds rising from the surface of the water to 7,000 feet.
They approached just above the clouds but were unable to see down to the ocean’s surface. Hoping for visual contact, McIntosh lowered the plane into the storm. The plane lurched and shook violently. Hard rain pelted the windshield. McIntosh wrestled the controls, guiding the plane lower until the clouds shredded and revealed a churning black ocean. They circled, holding at the lowest point they could.
“Anything?” McIntosh asked.
“Yeah,” said Myers. “There’s a pirate ship in the middle of a hurricane.”
HMS Bounty was one of the most recognizable ships anywhere in the world. Built in 1960 for the MGM film Mutiny on the Bounty, it was a scaled-up replica of the original on which Fletcher Christian led the revolt against Captain William Bligh in 1789. The modern Bounty was a classic tall ship. Its three masts rose more than 100 feet, supporting 10,000 square feet of sailcloth and laced with more than two miles of line. It was 120 feet long—30 feet longer than the original—and built of hand-hewn Douglas fir and white oak.
In recent years, however, the ship had fallen into disrepair; it was plagued with dry rot and leaks, and its owner had struggled to keep up with the expensive maintenance. Tired and sagging from 50 years of sailing and dock tours, the ship was now en route from New London, Connecticut, to St. Petersburg, Florida, to entice possible buyers, give dockside tours, and host an event for a nonprofit organization supporting kids with Down syndrome.
The crew of 16 ranged from first-time volunteers to career mariners. Among the most recent to join up was Claudene Christian, 42, a professional singer and a beauty queen from California who claimed to be a descendent of Fletcher Christian himself.
The captain was Robin Walbridge. Soft-spoken and gravel-voiced, he wore wire-rimmed glasses and hearing aids, and bound his flyaway gray hair in a short ponytail. The Bounty’s owner, New York businessman Robert Hansen, had hired Walbridge in 1995, and Walbridge had since helmed hundreds of voyages on the Bounty up and down the Atlantic coast, in all kinds of weather. Walbridge was considered a good sailor, but he also had the reputation for being something of a cowboy. A few weeks prior to setting sail, he’d told an interviewer, “We chase hurricanes … You can get a good ride out of them.”
A few weeks prior to setting sail, he’d told an interviewer, “We chase hurricanes … You can get a good ride out of them.”
On Thursday, October 25, the Bounty departed with clear skies, light winds, and all 16 crew members on board. As darkness fell on Sunday evening, the Bounty sailed straight into one of the worst storms ever recorded in the Atlantic. Dubbed Superstorm Sandy, it stretched almost 1,000 miles across, covering an area nearly twice the size of Texas. Out at sea off the coast of North Carolina, winds gusted up to 90 miles per hour. Earlier that day, a gust had ripped the ship’s forecourse, one of its 16 sails, which is crucial for maintaining stability in storms. As daylight faded, conditions deteriorated. Four feet of water sloshed around the engine room, overloading the pumps. The cabin’s overhead lights flickered until the generators and engines gave out entirely, leaving only the ghostly glow of the emergency lights. Below decks, Walbridge made his way to the communications room. He moved gingerly; earlier, a powerful wave had thrown him across the cabin into a bolted table, severely injuring his back. He took a seat near the communications console with Doug Faunt, 66, a volunteer who worked as the ship’s electrician. The storm had rendered their cell and satellite phones useless. Walbridge and Faunt were attempting to e-mail the Coast Guard to alert it to the grim situation. Walbridge had instructed anyone who wasn’t on watch or tending to a crisis to hunker down and, if possible, try to rest. It was going to be a long night. Another crew member, Adam Prokosh, 27, had also been injured, breaking three ribs, separating his shoulder, and suffering trauma to his head and back when the ship was rolled by a wave. Several other people were severely seasick. In the dim communications room, Walbridge and Faunt hunched over a makeshift transmitter, tapping out an e-mail message with their coordinates, praying it would reach someone on shore. In the skies above, McIntosh banked hard, looking down at a sight unlike anything he’d ever seen. Below was the Bounty’s hulking black shadow, its giant masts listing at 45 degrees. From the aircraft, the mission system officer radioed down on the emergency channel. The response was instantaneous: “This is HMS Bounty. We read you loud and clear!” It was John Svendsen, 41, the first mate. He explained that the Bounty was still taking on water at the rate of a foot an hour, but he felt they could hang on until daylight. McIntosh had hoped to drop backup pumps to the vessel, but conditions were too dangerous to get close enough. His flight crew had been taking a severe beating too. Several were airsick.
As the early hours of Monday morning dragged on, Walbridge positioned himself at the Bounty’s helm, leaving Svendsen to communicate with the Coast Guard plane. Svendsen told McIntosh that they were planning an evacuation at daybreak. Around 3 a.m., Walbridge and Svendsen directed the crew members to the stern and briefed them on the plan. “No one panicked,” Dan Cleveland, the third mate, recalled later. “The mood was calm, professional. I was really impressed.” For the next hour, the crew members tended to tasks—gathering their “Gumby suits” (bright red neoprene survival suits) and assembling supplies for the life rafts—or tried to find a place to rest, survival suits at the ready. Claudene Christian took care of the injured Adam Prokosh, helping him move to the high side of the ship. By 4 a.m., Walbridge told the crew to put on the suits. They would depart from the rear of the ship at first light. The water was coming in faster, at around two feet per hour, and the bow was now submerged. It was too rough to stand up on deck, so the crew crawled along the boards on their hands and knees. Those who didn’t have a particular task preparing supplies simply clung to fixed objects. Doug Faunt wedged himself against the deck rail firmly enough that he briefly dozed off. Around 4:30 that morning, the Bounty was broadsided by a massive wave that rolled it a full 90 degrees. A few people screamed. Several crew members were tossed through the air and into the sea. Some slid across the soaked deck, hitting the low rail and toppling into the water. Others, fearing the ship was capsizing completely, jumped from their perches into the ocean. The Bounty now lay on its side, masts in the water, surrounded by a web of tangled rigging. John Svendsen was near the radio and grabbed the handset. “We’re abandoning ship!” he shouted into the mic. “We’re abandoning ship now!”