Some crew rescued as ship sinks in Sandy's path

[dipsydoodle]

Source: USA Today

8:48AM EDT October 29. 2012 - U.S. Coast Guard helicopters have rescued 14 of the 17 people who abandoned their three-masted ship that took on water and later sank in the path of Hurricane Sandy, the CBC reported.

The 17 had donned life jackets and survival suits and abandoned the HMS Bounty after sending out a distress signal.

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The Coast Guard sent a C-130 and two rescue helicopters, HH60s, to rescue the crew, WITN-TV reported. The Washington, N.C., TV station said one helicopter began bringing back the first batch of survivors around 7 a.m. ET

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The ship was trapped in 40 mph winds and 18-foot seas about 90 miles southeast of Hatteras, N.C., and 160 miles west of the eye of the hurricane, according to a Coast Guard statement.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/29/hurricane-sandy-ship-abandoned-ship-coast-guard/1665339/

[Botany]

1. Way to go Coast Guard!

Tough and brave men and women go out in the worst of the worst
weather and save people's lives.

[go west young man]

12. Silly socialist coastguard personel!

Don't they realize they could make more money and be so much more efficient if they were privately owned! Obviously these fools could do better!

[kentauros]

14. The Coast Guard is great!

And I've rarely seen a recruitment commercial for them. They're kind of the "forgotten" arm of the armed forces. Yet what they do for us is often front and center.

That's a great photo, too.

[Botany]

15. they have a 1.5 year waiting list to join enlisted service and ...

..... their Officers Academy in Connecticut is as selective as some of the
top colleges in the nation.

[kentauros]

17. I didn't know that!

Maybe we need to boost their funding so they can hire and train more people

[HooptieWagon]

25. Congress keeps cutting their funding.

Plus, the past several decades they've had the additional job of drug interdiction. They no longer will come to rescue in non-lifethreatening situation, you're supposed to call a commercial towing service. But if your life is in danger, they're the best.

[kentauros]

36. I knew about them being involved with the DEA and Customs

You'd think with how "important" Congress sees those two that the Coast Guard wouldn't have their funding cut.

The bit about them not showing up unless it's life-threatening sounds much like how the police treat traffic accidents these days. Unless someone is hurt, they often won't even stop. You have to do all the reporting on your own.

[Kolesar]

2. That was the fifty year old HMS Bounty reproduction

I walked on her during the Tall Ships Exposition in Cleveland ten years ago. Way sad, hope they can rescue the other three crew members.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Plenty of pictures of her here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2224706/HMS-Bounty-17-crew-forced-abandon-ship-getting-caught-path-Hurricane-Sandy.html

[The Stranger]

23. Um, pardon me, but WTF were they trying to sail it "around" a hurricane?

Call in a tug, save the ship and everyone's lives.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

26. Dry docking it might have helped if it was pulled far from shore but,...

....you don't want the damn thing to end up a mile inland or be battered by coastal waves. This was a reproduction and sounds like it was powered by more than just the wind so they thought they could ride out the storm. It took on too much water over the decks and the engine room got flooded and that's all she wrote.

[HooptieWagon]

30. The ship can be replaced.

Lives cannot. Far better it be battered in port, crew safely ashore, than to risk lives by taking an old-fashioned sailing ship into a hurricane.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

31. This only LOOKED like an old fashioned ship. It was a powered reproduction....

And yes, the crew comes first. The more I think about it, the more I feel they should have headed inland up a river to avoid the storm.

[HooptieWagon]

33. No, it was a replica of a 19th century sailing ship.

The hull design and rigging were 200 year old technology. Modern diesels and communication should decrease chance of getting in a storm, but don't make the ship any safer if caught in a storm. Weight and windage of masts and rigging cause concern for stability. Quite a few of those ships have capsized and sunk in storms, usually with a loss of life.
Google Marques, Pride of Baltimore, Fantome, Concordia.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

39. I know that, what I'm saying is while this ship had full rigging, it's wasn't it's primary power.

[HooptieWagon]

41. The weight and windage of that rigging and masts adversely affects stability.

Also prevents ship from being able to head bow-on into the seas. Engines simply aren't large enough. Also, the hull shape was a near copy of original. Big blunt bow. Not capable of more than low speed... Maybe 8 knots max. The ship (and crew) would have been far safer in port, they shouldn't have been out there. Very poor decision.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

44. I think it went faster than 8 knotts.

http://www.tallshipbounty.org/the-ship/statistics.php

[HooptieWagon]

45. Just got off phone with my father.

He has a condo in Boothbay next door to where the Bounty docked. He has met and spoken with the captain many times, and been aboard the ship several times. He says the engines aren't all that powerful for a ship that size, and could barely do 6 knots in calm water.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

47. Oh wow. This is looking more and more like a major screwup to put that ship at sea.

[HooptieWagon]

50. I don't know if they made any stops after leaving Boothbay.

The boat was slow, likely they had left before Sandy formed. But every indication was they knew about the storm. They were in contact with owner in Fla until Sun PM, my dad says yhe ship had weatherfax, SSB radio, all modern electronics. They had several days warning about storm, plenty of time to seek shelter.
Only thing I can conclude is that they didn't realize how big the storm would get. Must have thought they could dodge around the west side of storm, then too late realized the storm was too big and boat too slow to avoid it.
Additional info my dad gave me was that during last winter, while down in the Carribean, the boat had to be hauled out for an emergency repair job to fix a bad leak. Then this summer, while in Boothbay, the boat was hailed again for an entire recaulking job, besides routine maintainence and above the waterline minor repairs. Don't know if that was related to problems they had, or if the water they were taking on was solely due to weather. Either way, they got caught up in weather they shouldn't have been out in.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

51. No doubt the waves went over the deck. They must have been huge.

[HooptieWagon]

52. Yes. 18 feet isn't all that high, but....

The wind was blowing against the flow of the Gulfstream, so the waves were undoubtably very steep... some were probably breaking. I'm sure the ship was getting battered pretty bad.
Also, as they were driven towards the coast it probably got worse. Off Hatteras the waves are like a washing machine... they seem to come from all directions, sometimes just out of nowhere. Very difficult to cope with in a boat that was slow and limited in manuverability.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

53. If the waves were coming from all directions as you say you can't exactly steer into them.

[HooptieWagon]

54. Yes, exactly.

The Gulfstream is extremely rough during a storm, and Cape Hatteras isn't known as the graveyard of ships for no reason.

[HooptieWagon]

28. Yep. Sailing ship and hurricane a bad mix.

Quite a few have capsized and sunk in the past 25 years. It appears to me they could have found shelter in the Chesapeake Bay a couple days ago, but captain elected to roll the dice and try to slip by the storm and keep on schedule. Poor, and tragic, decision.

[Democat]

4. The storm is not a surprise, what were they doing there?

Shouldn't they have gone somewhere safe when the forecast first mentioned the storm was coming?

[Kolesar]

5. A vessel can take a pounding in the breakers or if tied to pier during the hurricane swell

I took some seamanship courses years ago and I still don't know how to call this one. Would they have been safe behind the barrier islands? Big ships deal with storms by anchoring way off shore. Some captains try to sail to the "less windy" side of the hurricane. The captain could have just anchored in the sound, debarked everybody and let nature take its course.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. For a ship like this they would often send it as far up a river as they could.

[Recursion]

6. The thing with sailing ships is that land is a danger in a storm

As Melville wrote,

"Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landslessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!"

She lost power yesterday, presumably while trying to get somewhere safe.

[HooptieWagon]

19. If at sea, better to get away from land.

If in port, or can reach port before storm, better off there. 500 years of history tells us sailing ships and hurricanes don't mix.
A square-rigged cruise ship sank in a hurricane in the Carribean in the 80s trying to outrun the storm. All crew dead. The topsail schooner Pride of Baltimore capsized and sunk in a sudden storm. Half the crew dead. Full ship Palomir sunk in Atlantic storm about 1960, I think all crew died.

[DinahMoeHum]

27. Tall ship cruise vessel Fantome sank in Hurricane Mitch in 1998

off the coast of Roatan/Honduras in 1998

Passengers were safely disembarked in Belize several days before; the vessel sank with all crew aboard.
Marked the beginning of the end for Windjammer Barefoot Cruises.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=tall+ship+fantome&oq=tall+ship+fantome&gs_l=hp.3..0i30.2391.6407.0.7782.17.12.0.1.1.1.641.5046.0j3j1j1j1j6.12.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.1.5zQJCtFf-dk&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=a1a74987b0ef3170&bpcl=35466521&biw=1024&bih=543

[HooptieWagon]

32. Tnx. Fantome was the ship I was thinking of.

Thought it happened several years earlier. Captain disembarked passengers, then took ship back out to sea hoping to avoid hurricane. Capsized and sank with all 31 crew.
The weight and windage of masts and rigging on those ships mean quite a problem with stability. Considering how few there are, a suprising number have capsized and sunk... usually with some loss of life.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

48. It's not just these types of ships either....

I was in Michigan when word came of a massive iron ore ship going down in a storm.

We've all heard the song.

[Posteritatis]

34. The size of the storm is.

The thing's gotten to something like two thousand kilometers across; there's only been a few on that scale recorded, and they tend to grow faster than you can get clear.

I'm about that distant from New York and the system's very much affecting where I'm living.

[Justice]

7. they are now saying there were 16 on board not 17; 2 still unaccounted for. planes searching

[nichomachus]

8. Did it sink?

I didn't see that in the story. I saw the Bounty in August when it was tied up in Provincetown.

[HooptieWagon]

9. That ship not safer at sea in storm.

Some are. A square rigged ship not, even though it had an engine. They could have run into the Chesapeake Bay earlier, foolish not to. Reports are ship has sunk, a few crew still missing. My mother is saddened, the Bounty spent the summer in Boothbay Maine, a hundred yards away from my parents condo. I went aboard the Bounty about 1980, it was in poor condition at the time, but had been rebuilt a few times since.

[Recursion]

11. She was bermuda rigged, from the pictures I can see (nt)

[HooptieWagon]

18. No it is not!

Bermuda rig has triangular sails, pointed at the head (top). Mainsail usually supported at the foot (bottom) by a boom. Forward end of boom attached to mast by gooseneck fitting.
Square rig has rectangular sails that hang from yardarms. Yards are attached to masts in the middle, like a cross. Most square rigged ships do have triangular shaped jibs and staysails (plus a gaff-rigged spanker), but that does not make them a bermuda rig. The HMS Bounty was square-rigged

[Recursion]

21. My bad! I was looking at the wrong ship

Yup, that's definitely a yard and a course.

[Old and In the Way]

10. What a shame.

This summer, I was on a sail boat heading down the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth, NH when the Bountry was coming up for a visit...we crossed within 100 feet of each other. Got some great hi-res shots of the boat...just as it was passing the old Navy Brig ion Kittery Island. The Bounty was overhauled up at a boatyard in Boothbay Harbor for 3 weeks in October and was heading to St. Petersburg, FL for the winter. Sad to lose such a beautiful tall ship...

[formercia]

16. .."The old Navy Brig"

USS Neversail. A bad place to be when it was active.

[NCarolinawoman]

13. "Graveyard of the Atlantic"

That is what those tricky seas off the coast of Hatteras have been called for centuries.

[Historic NY]

20. Sad it made it way up the Hudson a few times...

along with HMS Rose.

[CitizenLeft]

22. oh no - I booked passage on that ship for 4 days

It sailed from Fairport Harbor, OH, to Cleveland for the Tall Ships (I'm thinking this was 2003). I got seasick and was laid up for a full day (storms on Lake Erie). I wanted to learn the ropes, rigging, and sailing techniques and was too nauseous to do my watches.

This breaks my heart to hear it might've sunk.

[slackmaster]

24. That headline should get some kind of booby prize for spin

Traditionally the loss of life leads a headline about a ship's sinking.

[dipsydoodle]

35. I believe it sunk after it had been abandoned.

[bec]

37. Very sad

I recently saw this ship docked in MA. I took my dogs for a walk by the waterfront. One of my dogs loved this ship. I have a picture of him with one of the crew members.

[dipsydoodle]

38. Body found in Bounty search

One of the two missing crew members of the replica ship the Bounty, which ran into trouble off the coast of North Carolina early today, has been found. The Coast Guard said the body of a woman, 42-year-old Claudene Christian, had been recovered. CNN says her body is apparently "unresponsive". She is being rushed to hospital.

The Bounty sent out a distress call at 6.30pm yesterday, when the crew reported she was taking on more water than the pumps could push out. The crew made plans to stay on the ship overnight and to abandon it at 8am this morning. But in the event, the crew were forced to leave the ship at 4am this morning. Three crew members were washed overboard at this time. One was recovered alive, soon afterwards.

Rescuers continue to search for the ship's captain, Robin Walbridge, 63.

18:40 EDT http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-news-blog/2012/oct/29/hurricane-sandy-new-york-live-blog#block-508f05f3b5792d0b94e6ea6b

[bluedigger]

43. She was alive but has passed...

Bounty crew member Claudene Christian is in critical condition in an Elizabeth City, N.C., hospital after being found by the U.S. Coast Guard on Monday evening.

An earlier report from the U.S. Coast Guard said Christian, 42, had died.

"She was unresponsive when we located her," coast guard Petty Officer 1st Class Brandon Hill said in an interview around 7:15 p.m. Atlantic time.

http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/156687-bounty-crew-member-in-critical-condition#.UI8RQV-8cu8.facebook

I fear the Captain has gone down with his ship.

Update: http://hamptonroads.com/2012/10/missing-crew-member-critical-after-hms-bounty-rescue

RIP.

[HooptieWagon]

46. News about her

Says she is the great great great great great granddaughter of Fletcher Christian, original Bounty mutineer.

[Historic NY]

40. Pray for Captain Robin Walbridge.

he was the life blood of the Bounty....

http://www.tallshipbounty.org/

[skeewee08]

42. Thank to the men & women of the Coast Guard.....

[PavePusher]

49. The tall ships have a call that sometimes can not be resisted.

UNDER the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.