HMS Bounty, also known as HMAV (His Majesty's Armed Vessel) Bounty, was a British merchant ship that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a unique botanical mission. The ship was to travel to the South Pacific under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the British West Indies. Unfortunately for the Royal Navy, a now infamous mutiny took place which prevented the mission's success, and forever cemented an epic maritime story to history.
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| Replica of HMS Bounty |
I discovered the story thanks to Hollywood and a VHS copy of the 1962 film 'Mutiny on the Bounty' starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard. It's a botched telling of the story but the cinematography and location shots in Tahiti are gorgeous. And it's easy to enjoy the chemistry between the actors particularly with Brando and his costar Tarita whom he later married.
A more faithful retelling of the story came out in 1984 named 'The Bounty' starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson. Hollywood led me to read a more comprehensive perspective via the trilogy of books by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. As an adult, the story inspired me and my new wife to spend our honeymoon in Tahiti and Moorea, which was 100% worth it.
The First Bounty
Bounty sailed for Tahiti on December 23, 1787. For a full month, the crew attempted to go around South America's Cape Horn, but adverse weather prevented this. Bounty then proceeded east and reached Tahiti, (then called "Otaheite"), on October 26, 1788 after ten months at sea. The crew spent five months collecting and preparing 1,015 breadfruit plants living ashore and becoming socialized to the customs and culture of the Tahitians. Master's Mate and Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian married a Tahitian woman as did many others.
After five months in Tahiti, Bounty set sail for home on April 4, 1789.
The mutiny broke out on April 28, 1789. Despite strong words and threats on both sides the ship was taken bloodlessly. Of the 42 men on board, 22 joined Christian in mutiny, two were passive, and 18 remained loyal to Bligh.
Most of Bligh's crew were cast off in the ship's launch boat. Bligh undertook an arduous journey to the Dutch settlement of Coupang, located over 3,500 nmi (6,500 km). He safely landed there 47 days later, having lost no men during the voyage except for one killed on Tofua.
On January 15, 1790 the mutineers, after some trial and error, rediscovered Pitcairn Island, which had been misplaced on all Royal Navy's charts. After the decision was made to settle on Pitcairn, livestock and other provisions were removed from Bounty. To prevent the ship's detection, and anyone's possible escape, the ship was burned on January 23, 1790 in what is now called Bounty Bay.
The mutineers remained undetected on Pitcairn until February 1808, when sole remaining mutineer John Adams and the surviving Tahitian women and their children were discovered by the Boston sealer Topaz, commanded by Captain Mayhew Folger of Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Seventeen years later, in 1825, HMS Blossom, on a voyage of exploration under Captain Frederick William Beechey, arrived on Christmas Day off Pitcairn and spent 19 days there. Beechey later recorded this in his 1831 published account of the voyage.
The Second Bounty
Bounty was commissioned by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio for the 1962 film. She was the first large vessel built from scratch for a film using historical sources. Previous film vessels were fanciful conversions of existing vessels. Bounty was built to extrapolated original ship's drawings from files in the British Admiralty archives, and in the traditional manner by more than 200 workers over an 8-month period at the Smith and Rhuland shipyard in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
To assist film-making and carry production staff, her general dimensions were greatly increased resulting in a vessel nearly twice the tonnage of the original. While built primarily for film use, she was fully equipped for sailing because of the requirement to move her a great distance to the filming location. The ship cost $750,000 and took three moths longer to build than scheduled.
Bounty was launched on August 27, 1960. Crewed by Lunenburg fishermen and film staff, the vessel sailed via the Panama Canal and arrived in Tahiti after filming had begun.. Bounty was scheduled to be burned at the end of the film, but actor Marlon Brando protested, so MGM kept the vessel. After filming and a worldwide promotional tour, the ship was berthed in St. Petersburg, FL on June 19, 1965 as a permanent tourist attraction, where she stayed until the mid-1980s. She would appear in various other movies including the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and traded owners.
On October 29, 2012, enroute from New London, CT to St. Petersburg, FL, the second Bounty sank due to weather from Hurricane Sandy. She was 50 years old. Two crew members perished, including Claudene Christian, a descendant of original mutineer Fletcher Christian. The other was long-time captain Robin Walbridge who was raised in Montpelier, VT, and later moved to St. Petersburg, FL.
