"The captain of a replica 18th-century sailing ship that sank off
North Carolina in Superstorm Sandy made a reckless decision to sail the
HMS Bounty into the hurricane’s well-forecast path, the National
Transportation Safety Board reported Monday.
The three-masted wooden sailing ship sank about 125 miles southeast
of Cape Hatteras in October 2012 as Sandy churned up the Atlantic
seaboard. The newly released NTSB report said Capt. Robin Walbridge’s
“reckless decision” to sail into the storm subjected the aging vessel
and its inexperienced crew to conditions they couldn’t surmount.
One member of the HMS Bounty’s 16-person-crew died and Walbridge was
never found after the sinking off North Carolina's Outer Banks, an ocean
expanse with a history of shipwrecks. Three other crew members aboard
the vessel — built for the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Bounty" starring
Marlon Brando — were seriously injured.
"Although this wooden ship was modeled after an 18th century vessel,
the captain had access to 21st century hurricane modeling tools that
predicted the path and severity of Hurricane Sandy," NTSB Chairman
Deborah A.P. Hersman said in a statement. "The Bounty’s crew was put
into an extraordinarily hazardous situation through decisions that by
any measure didn’t prioritize safety."
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