The HMS Bounty was far from the first ship to sink off Hatteras in a storm and it won’t be the last. That’s some fairly rough water under the best of conditions.
The decision to sail on was a mistake. Two lives were lost as well as a beautiful craft. What can possibly be gained by dragging the matter out? Is there some dispute over liability?
The USCG is not “dragging” it out, it is their job to investigate collisions, sinkings, loss of life, oil spills etc.
The captain was very experienced (and had sailed that ship for years) and planned to escape the hurricane by going out to sea, waiting it out, and then continuing down the coast after it had passed by. Possibly she could have done it if the engine hadn’t failed.
But I suspect that the answer to the question as to why she sailed is because the owner wanted her to sail in order to meet the schedule for the next docking of the ship. This ship sailed all over the place and had a fairly full schedule of stops, at which they charged visitors about $10 each to board and look around.
The ship stopped here in St Augustine and had a huge crowd of visitors.
So it’s possible that she was under pressure to meet the schedule and decided that this was the quickest and maybe even safest way to get where she was going. The owner was actually the one who reported the ship missing (since the communications system also seems to have failed).
In any case, it’s terrible that two lives were lost in this sinking, and also terrible that the ship was lost. I guess it’s a good reminder that, with all our technology, the sea is still stronger than we are.