Rescue of the Bounty: Disaster and Survival in Superstorm Sandy (2 page)

Still, no one spoke. Chief Mate Svendsen, who had given his captain his best advice, did not now share his thoughts. He had accepted the Walbridge plan as prudent.

Nor did the second mate, third mate, or the bosun voice their doubts.

Some of the crew members were nervous as they looked up at Walbridge. Some were excited for a new adventure after a summer of tranquil voyages. The moment for objections passed, and everyone—even the new cook, who had first boarded
Bounty
the night before—went to work, preparing to set sail.

•  •  •  

The sun slipped behind the railroad terminal just inshore from the City Pier. Dockmaster Neff and her crew were creating the Halloween maze when one of them looked up and saw
Bounty
was leaving. They all stood for a moment and enjoyed the spectacle: the dignified progress of a stately vessel of ancient proportions departing into the gathering dusk, heading south toward a monster storm.

Bounty has departed New London CT . . . Next Port of Call . . .

St. Petersburg, Florida.

Bounty will be sailing due East out to sea before heading

South to avoid the brunt of Hurricane Sandy.

—Entry on HMS
Bounty
Facebook page, 6:06 p.m., October 25, 2012

Adam Prokosh had been aboard
Bounty
for almost eight months. On the evening of October 25, he watched as the ship passed the redbrick Ledge Lighthouse and entered Long Island Sound, following the dusk as it dissolved into darkness. Prokosh, twenty-seven, of Seattle, had spent several years on a number of tall ships and schooners before he arrived at
Bounty
’s dock in San Juan, Puerto Rico, as an able-bodied seaman, or AB, the lowest coast guard rating, but a step above an ordinary deckhand. He had been impressed with much of what he found aboard the old ship, which was at times referred to as a “movie prop.”

While there was truth to the description—
Bounty
had been built in 1960 in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, for use in the movie
Mutiny on the Bounty
, starring Marlon Brando, and had more recently played a role in two
Pirates of the Caribbean
movies—the ship’s architect had created a rugged vessel that could actually sail. Whether sailing for MGM studios to Tahiti or doubling as the base of operations for the film crew and actors,
Bounty
was more than just a movie set. The ship was an expanded version of the HMS
Bounty
, with a 120-foot waterline as opposed to the original 86 feet that had been commanded by William Bligh. Inside were diesel-powered generators, air-conditioning, and other amenities necessary for moviemaking in the tropics.

Some of the film-crew equipment, such as cameras and lighting, had been scuttled by the time Prokosh boarded
Bounty
. But he had heard stories about the ship’s adventures under Robin Walbridge and believed her to be fundamentally seaworthy. He was further impressed by how organized and informed the crew were. Prokosh felt that communications aboard
Bounty
were the best he had ever encountered aboard any vessel. He felt far more excitement than fear about sailing during Hurricane Sandy. Out on Long Island Sound, Prokosh felt his spirits soaring.

“Sailing is a sport and a team sport,” he would say. “This is the big game. End of the season. This is what we train for. I’ve been on boats before that don’t emphasize seamanship. So those boats have a very set routine of Boston Harbor cruises. They will come back to the same dock after three hours. So, the little things about seamanship don’t get emphasized.”
Bounty
, having sailed all over the world in every weather and with crew members whose experience ranged from nonexistent to several licensed captains, had a special emphasis on seamanship training that he’d never experienced elsewhere.

The past season had been spent on tranquil seas. Prokosh could remember only two instances of sudden squalls that required the crew to douse sails on the double. There had been no sustained storms like what he had experienced on other boats. In his opinion, there was nothing quite like foul, exciting weather to drive home why you practiced good seamanship.

With these thoughts in mind Prokosh had gone into a New London bar earlier in the day. A patron who recognized him as a member of
Bounty
’s crew approached him. Prokosh knew few details about the approaching hurricane, although the crew who had heard from worried family members had been chattering about it.

“You guys will be crazy leaving the dock,” the bar patron told Prokosh.

“Are you kidding me?” he replied. “This is going to be great weather!”

•  •  •  

At 11:00 a.m., Monday, October 22, commercial weather router Chris Parker predicted that the eighteenth tropical depression of the season would turn into Tropical Storm Sandy. In an email to his boating clients, Parker suggested that by Wednesday night Sandy could cross Cuba as a Category 1 hurricane. Yet Parker’s email did not get to Robin Walbridge aboard
Bounty
. The tall ship was not one of Parker’s subscribed customers. Parker’s forecast a day later carried other sobering suggestions: “We’re used to thinking of Hurricanes as geographically-small systems. Tornadoes cause 200+ mph winds along a swath less than 1 mile across. Most Hurricanes’ strongest winds occur along a swath less than 30–40 miles across. The difference with Sandy is, as she transforms into a non-Tropical LO, her wind-field will expand geographically . . . AND she is expected to continue strengthening.”

The predicted level of low pressure in Sandy “would normally support a [Category 4] Hurricane. In Sandy’s case (as a non-Tropical LO), [that pressure] will probably support only 70–80 [-knot] winds . . . but those winds could blanket an area more than 500 miles across.”

A large blanket, indeed, covering most of the Atlantic Ocean between the US East Coast and Bermuda.

“So, whatever your plans are in the next week-or-so, you MUST have a PLAN for what you’ll do if Sandy brings 70–80k Hurricane Force winds (and maybe VERY LARGE surge of water) to your area.”

At 4:42 p.m. on Thursday, about an hour before
Bounty
left City Pier, Parker emailed his clients with his latest insights: “Obviously, Sandy is the BIG STORY!” Landfall, he predicted, would be somewhere along the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia coast, possibly New Jersey sometime on Tuesday, October 30.

Parker had a number of clients who, like
Bounty
, were making southbound voyages at the time. Many of them were “snowbirds”—live-aboard sailors who headed for warmer harbors when autumn arrived—and they sought refuge. One of them had pulled into a marina in Atlantic City, where he was protected behind the tower of a casino.

Other weather experts had come to a similar conclusion about the storm. Weather router Herb Hilgenberg, who provides sailors with free weather reports from his home base in Burlington, Ontario, had among his regular listeners the crew of the Maine-based schooner
Harvey Gamage
. Captain Christopher Flansburg had sailed the schooner south to Fernandina Beach, Florida, on a voyage to the Dominican Republic and was two days into the next leg when he learned from Hilgenberg that Sandy was forming. He turned the schooner around and docked in Jacksonville, Florida, for the next ten days.

By Thursday, October 25, when
Bounty
left City Pier in New London, Hilgenberg’s reports had steered three sailboats to anchor in Bermuda, where they remained for the duration of the hurricane.

Like Hilgenberg, Parker had no clients at sea that Thursday.

•  •  •  

The open ocean came into view around midnight. As
Bounty
approached the flashing white light on a tower at the end of Montauk Point, Long Island, the B-Watch came on duty—Second Mate Matt Sanders, deckhands John Jones and Jessica Hewitt, and able-bodied seaman Adam Prokosh. They found the seas calm and the skies clear. For an hour at a time, each watch stander steered
Bounty
by its big wooden steering wheel, called the helm, located aft of the rear mast (or mizzen) and used in Hollywood movies as far back as the 1935 film
Mutiny on the Bounty
starring Clark Gable. They also stood watch for an hour on the foredeck, where they were responsible for spotting traffic or obstacles, spent another hour doing boat checks in the engine room with bilge-pumping duties, and were on standby for an hour, in case their labor was needed.

In the six hours since leaving the dock, all of
Bounty
’s crew members had been on duty. Walbridge had told the new thirty-four-year-old cook, Jessica Black, to hold off on the evening meal. So she put the chili on simmer in the galley, which was located at the forward end of the middle, or tween, deck, and pitched in with the others. Everyone was “sea stowing,” securing everything on deck and belowdecks to prevent items from dislodging in the violent rocking of the ship during foul weather.

Tables on deck had to be tied down, and sails needed lashing. Prokosh organized the work on the top, or “weather,” deck knowing that if a piece of sail even as small as a handkerchief caught the wind in heavy weather, the entire sail would yank free and havoc would ensue. Walbridge had trained the crew to have the storm sails—smaller than sails used in moderate weather—ready in the case of rising winds. Prokosh oversaw that work, too.

When all was done and dark had settled over
Bounty
, the crew went down to the tween deck and then forward to the galley, where the steaming chili awaited them. Perhaps the hard work had primed their appetites, but all aboard felt Jessica’s cooking had exceeded their expectations.

During the meal the A-Watch was on duty—their hours were always from eight until twelve, day or night. Chief Mate John Svendsen, the watch captain, did not have much tenure aboard
Bounty
. Walbridge had hired him in February 2010 as an able-bodied seaman. While he would say he had spent most of his life on the water, Svendsen’s primary maritime employment before
Bounty
was as a dive instructor and dive-boat operator in Hawaii. He had sailed for a year aboard a modest tall ship, the
Californian
, a ninety-three-foot topsail schooner based in San Diego, and aboard another vessel operated by an environmental organization.

Svendsen was recognizable aboard
Bounty
by his shoulder-length, smoothly groomed, brown hair and his square build. At forty-one, the Minnesota native was articulate and measured. He was aware that aboard a tall ship there was much to learn, and he had once even searched for mentors in the maritime industry. But aboard
Bounty
, he was second-in-command. Only Robin Walbridge stood above him, and there was talk that when Walbridge retired in three years, Svendsen would replace him.

The able-bodied seaman on the A-Watch was an unpaid volunteer, Douglas Faunt, from Oakland, California. Though
Bounty
carried paid crew who received about $100 a week and some officers who received a bit more than that, at sixty-six Faunt was retired and not only didn’t need the money, but also enjoyed being able to sail at will and not on command.

Faunt had made a fortune selling a business and was now spending his money as he pleased. He rode motorcycles, traveled the world, and, being something of an electronics whiz, participated in ham-radio contests that took him to far-flung locales. But on
Bounty
Faunt found something—someone—who made the experience stand out above all other adventures: Robin Walbridge. Faunt loved him and saw Walbridge as a logical thinker, a consummate teacher, and someone that others should emulate.

Also on the A-Watch were deckhands Mark Warner, thirty-three, of Milton, Massachusetts, and Claudene Christian, forty-two, originally from Alaska and a former Miss Teenage Alaska. Of the two, Christian was known as the outgoing one with a “bubbly” personality.

Christian claimed to be a distant relative of Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate aboard the original
Bounty
who, in Tahiti in April 1789, led a mutiny and seized control of the ship from Captain William Bligh. Christian didn’t need to mention her notorious ancestor to attract attention, however. A petite blonde who had been a cheerleader at the University of Southern California, she once got the idea for a business—fashion dolls with cheerleader outfits from specific colleges and universities. In a sour ending to the Cheerleader Doll Co., Christian was sued by Mattel, maker of Barbie dolls. Before she reached
Bounty
’s decks, she had returned to live with her parents in Oklahoma. She shared with her college friend Michelle Wilton that she didn’t want to be there, was bored, and wanted a new start in life. Single and over forty, she felt that her life had hit a dead end. Then in May, with no significant tall ship experience, she joined
Bounty
’s crew as a volunteer and loved life aboard. For the first time in a long, long time, she told Wilton, she felt at peace and happy.

Among the four A-Watch crew members, Faunt had the most tall ship experience, having for several years sailed off and on aboard
Bounty
and other square-rigged ships. By any measure, the watch was the oldest on board, with an average age of over forty-five years.

•  •  •  

Prokosh was pleased to be sailing toward a hurricane with the four members of the A-Watch and the other eleven crew members who stayed aboard
Bounty
for her voyage to
Bount
y
’s 2012–2013 winter dock in Galveston, Texas. Yes, with only sixteen aboard,
Bounty
had her smallest crew since leaving San Juan in April.
But these sixteen,
Prokosh thought,
they are the right ones. They have stuck with
Bounty
the whole season, they know the boat well, and they really will give it their best.