Sinking of the Tall Ship Bounty (NTSB Marine Accident Brief MAB-14-03)
MGM built the Bounty for the 1962 film Mutiny on the Bounty, and it spent the next fifty years as a tourist attraction and sail-training vessel. Sixteen pages on how it came to sail from New London into the forecast path of Hurricane Sandy on 25 October 2012 and sink four days later off Cape Hatteras, with one crew member dead and the captain never found. The NTSB found rotted hull planking that had been painted over rather than replaced, and seams caulked with polyurethane, glazing and bathroom silicone sealants, none of them rated for immersion. Crew members testified that the captain was superstitious about sailing on a Friday, which the board takes as the reason he left on Thursday evening.
MGM built the Bounty in Nova Scotia in 1960 for the Brando remake of Mutiny on the Bounty. She spent the next fifty years as a film prop, a tourist attraction and a sail training vessel, and in October 2012 she sailed from New London into the path of Hurricane Sandy. She sank off Cape Hatteras on 29 October. The captain and one crew member died.
A chart in the middle of the brief shows the two tracks converging over five days. The Safety Board notes that the vessel organisation knew the storm was coming, and that no record, testimony or other evidence shows anyone advising the captain not to sail.
Accident reports are written to establish cause rather than blame, and they usually stay level whatever they are describing. This one does not:
...the probable cause of the sinking of tall ship Bounty was the captain's reckless decision to sail the vessel into the well-forecasted path of Hurricane Sandy, which subjected the aging vessel and the inexperienced crew to conditions from which the vessel could not recover.
Provenance
- Original source
- https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/MAB1403.pdf
- Collected
- This copy
- 917 KB · 16 pages · archived here
- Rights
- Work of the US federal government, not subject to copyright (17 U.S.C. 105).
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