This is a horrid storm.
Thanks for posting. I visited her when she was berthed in Old San Juan last summer. What a loss.
Thanks for posting. I visited her when she was berthed in Old San Juan last summer. What a loss.
Very sad. I walked those decks years ago when the ship was on display at the St. Petersburg pier. We all wish they had laid to port.
Whose stupid idea was it to sail?
Claudene Christian with Bounty
Why were they sailing in this type of weather?
I wanna know WTF they were thinking with all the advance notice of the impending megastorm were they even out there?
It’s gonna be an interesting shipwreck for some divers some day when they find an 18th century tall ship with 21st century electronics onboard.
It was foolish to sail into that storm. Hindsight brings wisdom.
Apparently, she was also a direct descendent of Fletcher Christian
Part of the movie “Treasure Island” with Christian Bale and Charlton Heston - how I’ll remember her.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZU9GPkZOKE
Bounty was well suited to weather the storm she faced. Square rigged wooden vessels endured high seas and winds for centuries. While many were lost, it was almost always a result of being driven on a lee shore and breaking up on the beach or on rocks. So long as she has water under her keel and maneuvering room, she should have been fine.
However, she wasn’t a truly historic vessel, she had a diesel engine and probably relied on her engine rather than sails to maneuver. I cannot tell from the picture, but it looks like she did not have any sail set (she would have staysails only and perhaps a foretopsail). I could make out a yardarm and it does not appear to even have sails bent. If she had no sails bent, then when her engine failed she was doomed. Her crew was inadequate to get sail aloft, man the pumps (did she even have chain pumps) and do other things that a square rigger must do to weather a storm.
I suspect that she lost her ability to steer, came athwart a wave, broached to, and shipped water through her hatches.
Most stupid thing in the world sailing that ship into those seas.
Many places he could have put in to.
Claudene was a USC Trojan Song Girl, and a sweet one at that. RIP.
Read somewhere that she lost steering.
Two souls and a great ship lost, RIP.
This reminds me of the sinking of Windjammer’s Fantome, which perished in 1998 in Hurricane Mitch, taking down 31 crew members with her. http://www.fortogden.com/fantommiamiherald.html
Canadian article on the sinking with a lot more detail:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/156687-search-continues-for-bounty-captain
Here is Claudene Christian’s Linked In Page:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/claudene-christian/7/652/395
And her self started business in cheerleader dolls— she was an entrepreneur and risk taker. A real go getter and it is a tragedy:
http://www.cheerleaderdollcompany.com/about/my-story
It is mysterious that Sandy Christian a direct descendant, of the original HMS Bounty’s leader of the mutiny, Fletcher Christian, happens to die when the rebuilt Bounty founders.
I remember two things about this vessel. The first is that I was actually aboard her in the late 1960's as a boy. The second was last week, I was relating to a co-worker of mine about the history of Captain William Bligh, and the fact that I was aboard this replica back then, and could actually recall how *small* it really was as a ship. Now, I'll have to relate the final chapter of the tale, with her sinking on Monday...
the infowarrior