HMS Bounty crew member dies in hospital
Posted October 30, 2012 4:36 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The U.S. Coast Guard has pulled the body of a lost HMS Bounty crew member from rough waters as post-tropical storm Sandy continues to churn the mid-Atlantic ocean.
Claudine Christian, 42, was unresponsive when she was pulled from the water near where her ship went down off the coast of North Carolina.
“We located her at about 4:30 p.m., about eight miles away from the HMS Bounty, and she was pronounced dead by the hospital as soon as we took her there,” Petty Officer David Weydert told News 95.7 Tuesday morning.
The search continues for ship’s missing Capt. Robin Walbridge, 63, who has been missing since the Bounty went down. He is wearing a survival suit, but has now been in the water for more than 24 hours.
“The Coast Guard always hopes for the best while we’re searching. We’re going to keep our assets up there. We’re going to keep searching,” said Weydert.
The Coast Guard cutter Elm and HC144 Ocean Century aircraft are currently going over “search patterns” over the water. At first light a C130 Hercules will be taking over.
Fourteen other crew members were rescued from HMS Bounty.
The Nova Scotia-built, replica 18th-century sailing vessel was originally built for the 1962 film “Mutiny on the Bounty” and was featured in several other films over the years.
Christian was the great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Fletcher Christian, who took command of the original Bounty following the infamous mutiny in 1789.
Christian was with the ship’s crew when HMS Bounty visited Halifax this summer with the Tall Ships Festival.
Crew well-trained
A survivor of the sinking of the Tall Ship Concordia in 2010 says all crew members would be well trained is abandoning ship procedures. Still, Maurice Tugwell says a lot of questions need answers after the ship sank in high seas during Monday’s hurricane
Tugwell was aboard the Tall Ship Concordia, when she sank in a freak storm off the coast of South America in February 2010. He said all of the crew members would have been well versed in safety procedures and would have rehearsed them.
“But what do you do when you’re being swamped really?” said Tugwell. “You’re going to have to decide how long you’re going to stay on the ship and where the life pod is going to be launched from.”
Captain Wallbridge was said to be wearing a survival suit when the ship went down.
Tugwell says the suits have a built in beacon to aid in rescue, along with a built in life jacket.
Tugwell says he has many questions as to why the ship was out in the bad weather in the first place, adding that if it did lose power that would explain why it ran into trouble.
