Damning Testimony at the Bounty Hearing
The sea doesn’t care what you meant to do. It doesn’t ask what the reason was, let alone whether your reason rises to the level of an excuse. The sea doesn’t judge. The sea will meet you on whatever terms you set, for better or worse. From gCaptain:
The witness, Todd Kosakowski, looked at Coast Guard’s evidence # CG-41: a series of 29 photographs he had taken of Bounty during its most recent yard period. Mr. Kosakowski – the lead shipwright and project manager for Boothbay Harbor Shipyards – was in charge of the last maintenance project ever to be done on Bounty.
The pictures were of rotted frames and fasteners (trunnels) he found under the planking during repairs. Kosakowski told NTSB investigator Captain Rob Jones that he believes 75% of the framing above the waterline on Bounty may have been rotten, but that the ship’s representative in the yard, Captain Robin Walbridge, declined any further search for rotted wood. He convinced Kosakowski that they would make the repairs before their next Coast Guard hull inspection. The final witness of the day and the discussion of the evidence was stunning those of us in the crowd.
He had given the photos to the USCG Investigator back in December. That same Coast Guard investigator – Commander Kevin Carroll – was on the other side of the table today, asking questions.
Carroll: “And you had a conversation…did you tell Captain Walbridge?”
Kosakowski: ”Yes.”
Carrol: ”What did he say?”
Kosakowski: “He was also concerned. I told him I thought that he had to pick and choose his weather… he said that he was terrified of what we had found.”
You can read the rest here, but it doesn’t get any better. By the reckoning of the last shipwright to work on Bounty and the head of the Tall Ships Association, Bounty should not have been at sea during Hurricane Sandy.
I don’t know anything about how such things are done, but surely some regulatory body could keep a structurally unsound ship from putting to sea.Report
Like MON TIKI, the Bounty was a USCG Inspected Passenger Vessel, and based on the post cited, it seems unlikely she would have passed her next (annual) inspection, and would have been ordered to cease passenger carrying operations unless and until the vessel’s deficiencies were corrected.
As I understand the article, the USCG did issue an Urgent Notice to Mariners specifically for Bounty after she was at sea, but not on the basis of her condition; the UNTM was issued because Sandy was a dangerous storm in Bounty’s path.
There is no regulatory regime in place that would have made the Coast Guard aware of her condition until her next USCG inspection. The shipwrights obligation was to inform the master of the vessel, which he did. Why Captain Walbridge took the course of action he did can only be guessed at.Report
That’s just madness. As I understand it, Bounty had already lost her USCG license once and been obliged to replace planking in 2002. There was supposedly another “restoration” in 2007. Surely someone would have observed the framing was in bad shape somewhere along the line there.
I know nothing about how such inspections are done but if those planks were put over rotten framing, well — WTF.Report
Agreed that it’s madness, but its the Bounty’s captain and owner’s madness, not the regulatory regime.
Like a restaurant, there are unsafe conditions that can arise between inspections that are the restaurant’s responsibility to correct at the time they occur, rather than waiting for an inspector to come and make note of them.
And again, Bounty was not operating under any regulatory regime at the time of her loss. She was not carrying passengers for hire. Her condition and fitness for duty was not a regulatory concern. From a regulatory stand-point she was no different from a boat that I made in my driveway and launched off the beach.Report
Growing up in St. Petersburg in the 70’s, we (I, rather) implicitly regarded the moored replica of The Bounty as typical Florida-kitsch designed to lighten unsuspecting snow-birds of the over-priced $2.50 admission fee. Being of the enlightened native population, I must have walked, biked, boarded, bladed, and later driven past The Bounty down by The Pier a million times, but I never set foot on her decks.
Still, a decade later and 500 miles distant in Atlanta, the mid-80’s news of The Bounty finally leaving her St. Petersburg berth made me feel a tinge of loss. It was precisely the 70’s kitsch that had made Florida such a special place for such a small window of time in my childhood, before the comparatively-synthetic corporate era of MGM, Universal Studios, etc.
It was places like the Tarpon Springs Sponge Docks; Sunken Gardens; road-side Mom & Pop aligator/monkey farms; the Weeki Wachee mermaid show; the Tic-Tac-Toe-playing chicken in the decaying diner at Webb City (formerly the World’s Largest Drug Store); the depressing St. Petersburg Beach aquarium; the abandoned Vinoy resort that stood like a sentinel overlooking The Bounty; and The Bounty herself – they were all the last relics of an age of innocence that no longer exists in Florida, and never will again.
That photo kills me. The Bounty deserved better. What a shame.Report
Bounty was not USCG Inspected Passenger Vessel. It could not get that certification and did not have the same inspection requirements of sail training vessels. It was certified as a “dockside attraction,” with much more minimal requirements. It was not a sail training vessel and was not permitted to take passengers. This is why it survived with many “volunteer” crew because it couldnt take paying passengers. Lot of loopholes in the regulations that need to be closed.Report
You may be right about here being certified as a dockside attraction. Here’s her listing in the USCG database:
http://cgmix.uscg.mil/PSIX/PSIXDetails.aspx?VesselID=345399
It shows her documented as an UPV, but if you do a search on her records, there are many entries for Certificate of Documentation.
As to her volunteer crew, what loophole would you close? Requiring inspection of every vessel with a volunteer crew would mean every recreational vessel in the US fleet.
From the testimony in the cited article, it seems bounty wasn’t fit to go to sea. But she went to sea as a private vessel. How would you regulate that?Report
It seems to me, based on what I’ve dug up, if Bounty’s repairs were as slipshod as the work done on Shenandoah, it’s small wonder Bounty came to pieces.
Presumably, and here I betray my complete ignorance, a shipyard like Boothbay would have a master who would vouch for the soundness of a vessel, much akin to a home inspector, rootling around and finding structural problems. A house can be condemned for such. Why not a ship?Report
At the risk of repeating myself, by what mechanism will this be done?
Vessels used to be regulated by tonnage, as described in Making a Living in the Wake of the Pelican Disaster, but this encouraged the unsafe operation of smaller vessel. Now vessels are regulated by the number of passengers they carry 1-6 barely regulated and then very regulated at 7 or more (with rising regulatory burdens as the passenger count grows.)
Please give a rubric by which vessels not carrying passengers for hire would be regulated? Many 40 footers could safely carry 16, the number on Bounty when she sank. How will you decide which non-commercial vessels will be inspected. Where will the money come from to do this?Report
At the risk of repeating myself, by the same mechanism by which buildings are rated structurally sound. Sick timber in a house will earn it its owner a day in court and in due time a big red sticker reading CONDEMNED.Report
So the shipyard would have a reporting requirement for any boat they work on?Report