First body recovered from sunken ship
the body of Claudene Christian, 42, has been found, with another person still missing after HMS Bounty sank off the coast of North Carolina. The 50-year-old replica of
Captain Bligh’s ship was sailing from Connecticut to Florida and was about 160
miles west of the eye of Hurricane Sandy when it started taking water.
The crew members managed to keep
the ship afloat for several hours but were eventually forced to admit defeat
and abandon ship as Bounty capsized in hurrican-strength winds and 18ft waves. 14 crew
members managed to climb into the life rafts, whilst two were declared missing.
US Coast Guard helicopters
rushed to the scene and air-lifted the survivors to safety, while Coast Guard
ships and aircraft were deployed to continue the search for the missing.
Bounty, which was built for the 1962 film ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ starring
Marlon Brando and has also appeared in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, spent most
of its time as a sail training ship.
