Free Rescue of the Bounty: Disaster and Survival in Superstorm Sandy by Michael J. Tougias, Douglas A. Campbell Page A

felt the crew took the job seriously.
    Prokosh enjoyed Walbridge’s style. And he trusted his crewmates and felt a lot of qualified sailors were on board Bounty . He was relying on the officers to assure that the ship was correctly maintained. He assumed that was the case.
    The second deckhand on B-Watch was John Jones. He had been aboard since San Juan, had been one of the sail handlers with Scornavacchi. Even though Jones, twenty-nine, didn’t spread himself around thick—his wasn’t one of the names mentioned first by the rest of the crew—he’d earned a nickname: the Dudester.
    •  •  •  
    B-Watch was seasoned, but the thing it alone could not do—had not done—was keep Bounty afloat. One man could be credited with doing that, and it wasn’t even Robin Walbridge. Indeed, when Walbridge first became her captain, Bounty was nearly sinking at the dock in Fall River, Massachusetts, where she was taking on thirty thousand gallons of water an hour—the volume of water contained in a large in-ground swimming pool. But then in 2001, the ship was bought and money began flowing into Bounty ’s coffers and her leaks began to be plugged.
    Robert E. Hansen Jr. had taken some of his employees on a team-building sail on another tall ship, the Rose , and was enthralled with that vessel. When he learned that the City of Fall River was prepared to sell Bounty , he bought it.
    A decade or so earlier, the HMS Rose Organization, a charitable, nonprofit corporation, had lusted for Bounty , wanting to add the rival ship to its fleet. The group was going to run it like Rose , as an inspected sailing-school vessel. But at the time, the organization’s finances were spread thin simply for operating Rose .
    Richard Bailey, Rose ’s skipper then, recalled that in 1994 Bounty “was in pretty hard shape.” She still had old fuel tanks with a capacity of sixteen thousand gallons that had been installed for her 1960s trip to Tahiti. The condition of her hull was unknown. There had been so many repairs that the hull—far from being sleek—looked as if it were made of bricks, Bailey said.
    The ship’s condition hadn’t improved when in 2001 Hansen became sole owner, with his new company, HMS Bounty Organization LLC, as the documented owner. But at the time, Hansen was seeing promise, not problems.
    “We want her on the tall-ship circuit,” Hansen told the online site of Long Island Business News on February 23, 2001. “It’s a sin to let her sit.”
    Although most tall ships are owned by nonprofits—and all sail-training ships by law have to be owned or operated by nonprofits—the business newspaper reported that Hansen saw Bounty as a moneymaking operation, envisioning its use for corporate events, private parties, and tourism-related appearances.
    At the time, LIBN.com reported, Hansen had a coinvestor in Bounty , an executive from his firm Islandaire Inc. The men told the website that they estimated their start-up cost at $2.25 million. “They are seeking a $2 million loan from the Bank of Smithtown for renovations,” the website reported. “Later, the venture hopes to land $1.3 million in long-term financing from the Long Island Development Corp., with backing from the federal Small Business Administration.”
    “This boat is a publicity magnet,” Hansen told the website. “Wherever we go, the cameras will follow, as well as the people.”
    Later, Bounty ’s future expanded in Hansen’s imagination. He was reported as thinking of the ship’s role in “seaside festivals, corporate outings and sponsorships, tall ship gatherings, a movie set, television commercials and teaching 18th century seamanship skills” as part of “her almost limitless possibilities.”
    Then Hansen began to deal with the reality of owning a tall ship. He hired Maine marine surveyor and naval architect David Wyman to conduct a survey at the dock in Fall River. Wyman hired a diver to inspect the hull. In a word, the condition was