I've been questioning the captain's judgment since the story first broke on the local news a bit after 5am today.
Reports are that the wind was 40 kt and 18 ft seas, but I suspect that conditions were a lot worse than that last evening and overnight. Sandy's CPA to Hatteras was late last night/very early this morning at a bit over 70 degrees west longitude. Basically about 230 nm offshore. The sinking is reported to be about 90nm off Hatteras, so the boat was about 140 nm from the center of the storm at a time when NOAA was calling for 50 kt winds and 70 kt gusts out to 170 nm from the storm. One of my boats is in a creek off the Pungo River - 150 nm west of the site of the sinking - and we were having NE to N 30-35 kt winds and gusts to 45 kts late yesterday. This morning the wind has moderated to NNW to NW at around 20 with gusts to 30. Bounty was southbound along the inside edge of the Gulf Stream last night with N winds at 50 kts or more - a recipe for 30-35 ft seas out in the Gulf Stream. And she was at a pinch point with little or no latitude to move closer to Hatteras because of the shoaling and very rough seas that occur up to 40-50 miles offshore. Add that there are no inlets between Norfolk and Beaufort that can be entered by a ship of that size except in very favorable weather. A crew of 16 pretty much implies that she had to be motoring. I doubt that a crew that size would be adequate to handle sails in rough weather. So the captain seems to have spent 3 days sailing his ship into a well predicted hurricane to a location where he had almost no options in the event of trouble. Why he didn't put into Norfolk and hide out in the lower bay, or even put into Delaware Bay and use the C&D Canal and the Chesapeake Bay to make a protected passage south around the path of the storm, we may never know. It seems a tragedy to lose such an iconic tall ship, and probably the lives of thos folks still in the water. Rick Brass Washington, NC From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Pat Nevitt Sent: Monday, October 29, 2012 12:35 PM To: cnc-list@cnc-list.com Subject: Re: Stus-List HMS Bounty Abandoned - 2 Crew Missing at Sea. Not pretty. She left New London on 25 October enroute Miami. The path for Sandy had been known prior to that. Rumor has it the captain decided he could skirt the outside of the storm ... in a square rigger! On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 10:40 AM, Colin Kilgour <charliekilo...@gmail.com> wrote: This sucks. Big time. http://www.uscgnews.com/go/doc/4007/1591487/UPDATE-Coast-Guard-rescues-14-co ntinues-searching-for-2-from-HMS-Bounty Cheers, Colin _______________________________________________ This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album http://www.cncphotoalbum.com CnC-List@cnc-list.com
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