Rescue of the Bounty: Disaster and Survival in Superstorm Sandy Read Online Free PDF Page A

northeast] @ 45–85 knots sustained . . . and after Sandy passed . . . winds backed [to the north-northwest] as expected in 45–75 knots sustained range.
    —Chris Parker, report, Friday, October 26, 3:00 p.m.
    At about 8:00 a.m. on Friday, October 26, around the time the east and most violent side of Hurricane Sandy was hammering the Abacos Islands about a hundred miles or more off the Florida coast, the officers of Bounty gathered at the stern on the tween deck in what was called the Great Cabin. Eating breakfast while they talked, Walbridge, Chief Mate Svendsen, Second Mate Sanders, Third Mate Dan Cleveland, Bosun Laura Groves, and Engineer Chris Barksdale discussed the weather. The forecasts that they were getting—weather faxes off the single sideband radio and emails from Tracie Simonin, Bounty ’s land-based office manager—continued to show the same path for Hurricane Sandy.
    They talked about work that would be performed that day by Bounty ’s crew. A yard—the horizontal wooden spar that holds the top of a square sail—would be lowered to the deck to reduce weight aloft. More sea stowing had to be accomplished so that when the seas grew and the ship rocked, no loose items would be flying across the ship’s thirty-one-foot beam and threatening the crew.
    The officers also talked about the navigation plans. The engines were running hard—uncommon aboard Bounty . Usually, when the ship lost sight of land, the captain, for authenticity and as a means of teaching, turned off most mechanical equipment—even navigational tools—and reverted to authentic practices used in the days of sail. But time and distance needed to be made—three hundred miles to the south in the next couple of days—according to Walbridge’s plan to place Bounty at the same latitude as Cape Hatteras, where, if the hurricane performed as the captain expected, he thought he would be able to sail with favorable winds.
    Once the officers’ meeting concluded, it was time for the daily Captain’s Muster, when all hands gathered around the ship’s capstan, a giant winch in front of the third, or mizzen, mast, which hauled lines when the force needed was greater than what the deckhands alone could provide.
    Muster was the one time in any normal day when all the crew saw Walbridge, a time when the skipper might tell a joke or two, but when, invariably, he would use the opportunity to teach his young followers—he called them future captains of America—something new about seamanship.
    Walbridge was a modern-day Socrates. He taught by asking questions. On this day, the question was “Two hundred years ago, how would sailors know a hurricane was coming?”
    “I don’t think they would have known at all that a hurricane was coming,” replied Joshua Scornavacchi, twenty-five, who had been on board most of the time since San Juan. Walbridge didn’t agree or disagree. This was part of his teaching technique. He allowed people to think out the solution to a problem and encouraged them to try their ideas, even when those efforts resulted in mistakes, as long as the mistakes were not dangerous. Then he would urge that person to teach others what he or she had learned. Moreover, crew members, even the greenest, found Walbridge willing to listen to what they had to say. But everyone, regardless of his or her experience, found that the captain was several steps ahead in his thinking. Respect for his deep knowledge was widespread, a dividend of not only the life Walbridge had led but his singular personality. At least superficially, this explains why no one left Bounty back in New London. If he or she stayed aboard long enough, as Third Mate Dan Cleveland had, a crew member learned to believe what the captain said. But you had to experience Walbridge’s expertise in the context of life aboard Bounty . Taken out of that context, Walbridge was capable of being misunderstood, as he had been during an interview one day in the summer of