A BRIEF HISTORY
2
A BRIEF HISTORY
The Mutiny on the
Bounty
is without doubt one of the best
known and most often written about sea stories of all time. It is
also probably the most thoroughly documented mutiny in
history. In the 18th century and before, mutiny on shipboard
was commonplace. Horrible living conditions, atrocious food,
vicious discipline, grueling labor and endless tedium
interspersed with moments of peril, bred discontent among crews.
Driven like animals in floating barns, seamen often saw mutiny,
and the probability of a hangman’s noose, as a more acceptable
course of action than enduring further life as dutiful sailors.
But seldom did mutineers write down their adventures. Most
ordinary seamen were illiterate, and so incapable of recording
their actions even if inclined to do so. Officers involved in
mutinies most often wound up dead. So the record of
successful mutinies is thin. We can only wonder how many
of the ships designated “lost at sea” disappeared at the hands of
mutineers as opposed to those of nature.
The mutiny on the
Bounty
is unique in that a number of
officers, including Captain Bligh, lived to tell and write
about it. And from these accounts of the participants,
dozens of books have been written as well as at least three
major motion pictures.
Lieutenant William Bligh, Royal Navy, commanded
H.M.S.
Bounty
on a voyage that departed Spithead in England,
December 23rd 1787, bound for Tahiti. His mission was to
collect 1000 breadfruit saplings for transplantation to the
English West Indies. The objective was to see if breadfruit
could become a worthwhile food crop outside of its natural
South Pacific habitat.
After a tough, outbound voyage in which
Bounty
failed to
weather Cape Horn and was forced to reach the Pacific by an
eastward passage through the Indian Ocean, ship and crew
tarried for six months in Tahiti. They had to wait for the
breadfruit to be ready for transplantation.
Shortly into the return voyage, as
Bounty
reached the vicinity of
the Friendly Island group, Master’s Mate, Fletcher Christian,
led the mutiny. Early in the morning of April 28, 1789,
Christian captured Bligh in his cabin and subsequently took
command of the ship by force of arms.
Bligh and eighteen others were set adrift in the
Bounty’s
23'
launch, while Christian and the rest of the mutineers variously
made their way to Pitcairn Island, Tahiti, and freedom in
England or death at the end of a rope. The last was the fate of
three of them.
Knowledge of the extraordinary adventure that followed is due
to the fact that Bligh kept a log and submitted it to the admiral-
ty after his return to England. It recounts the events of the
4000 plus mile small boat voyage that took place after the
mutiny, and recounts, as Bligh notes, a voyage that was “... one
of the most extraordinary nature that ever happened in the
world ...!” The story is an amazing study in navigational skill,
human endurance, and scarcely believable luck likely to raise
the hair of even the most intrepid mariner.
Dangerously overloaded with 19 men and short provisions, the
launch traveled from the site of the mutiny near Tofua in the
Friendly Island group to Timor near the northwest corner of
Australia in 48 terrifying days. Day after day, Bligh and his
crew experienced mountainous seas, rain, wet sleepless nights,
and a diet consisting of crumbs of bread and teaspoons of rum.
On lucky days they enjoyed seagull entrails and blood.
Without doubt theirs is among the most remarkable sea adven-
tures in literature and we cannot but admire Bligh and his men
for having survived it. The closing words of Bligh’s log ...
“Thus happily ended through the assistance of Divine
Providence without accident a voyage of the most extraordinary
nature that ever happened in the world, Let it be taken in its
extent, duration, and so much want of the necessaries of life”
The
Bounty’s
launch was typical of boats issued to Royal Navy
ships of the period. She was a standard issue 23 footer built by
a contractor to the Navy, Mister John Burr. It has been
calculated that when overloaded with 19 men, gear and provi-
sions, she floated with a bare 6 inches of freeboard.
The launch had a beam of 6'-9", a depth of 2'-9" and a
maximum displacement of about 2.5 tons. One can estimate
that crew and gear probably weighed 2.25 tons, leaving only
500 pounds as the difference between functional buoyancy and
sinking. No wonder Bligh’s men bailed almost constantly.
The above short history was taken from
“The JOURNAL of
BOUNTY’S LAUNCH”
published by Kittiwake Publications,
ISBN 0-929834-00-3, authored by A. Richard Mansir. This is
a delightful little book and contains Bligh’s entire Journal of the
voyage, excellent reproductions of paintings of the launch at
sea, and some notes on building a model of the launch.
Unfortunately, the book seems to be out of print but copies are
often available by searching the internet.
The model is designed to a scale of 3/4" = 1' resulting in a
model of 17-1/4" overall length. At this scale a 5'-9" tall man
would be 4-5/16" tall. It is difficult to imagine 19 such souls
