The wooden vessel settles in for a winter stay at the Pier. Tours will be available in January.
By JON WILSON
Published December 14, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - The HMS Bounty is home for the winter.
The tall, wooden ship that was once a fixture on the downtown waterfront docked last week at the Pier, where it will remain until late March.
Built in 1960 for the Marlon Brando remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, the three-masted square-rigger will be open for tours starting Jan. 5. Hours will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
But there won't be any sailing excursions.
"We're giving Robin time off," said Margaret Ramsey, referring to Robin Walbridge, the ship's captain, who lives in St. Petersburg.
"We're available for anything else you want," said Ramsey, who is the Bounty's seaside operations director.
Tours cost $5 for everyone. For information, call Ramsey at 631 588-7900. The Bounty also has a Web site: www.tallshipbounty.org
The ship, 180 feet long from stern to bowsprit, sailed the Great Lakes this past spring and summer, visiting such ports as Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio; Chicago and Sarnia, Ontario. More than 1-million visited the vessel, according to its publicists.
St. Petersburg is considered the Bounty's winter home, Ramsey said.
After filming of the 1960s Brando movie, which also starred Richard Harris and Trevor Howard, MGM sent the ship on a worldwide promotional tour. Then the film studio set opened the ship as a tourist attraction in the Vinoy Basin, where it stayed until the mid 1980s.
New York businessman Bob Hansen currently owns the ship. The Tall Ship Bounty organization intends to keep it afloat, using it as an educational tool to teach age-of-sail seamanship.
The original Bounty, commissioned by the British Admiralty in 1787, was of the same era as the ships portrayed in Patrick O'Brian's seafaring tales.
The Bounty already has had a longer life than could be expected of wooden ships such as those in the movie Master and Commander: Far Side of the World. Battle-ravaged or weather-beaten, those vessels might survive a fraction of the Bounty's current 43 years.
Having undergone a $1.5-million renovation job to keep it seaworthy, the Bounty is the only wooden square-rigger in North America still sailing, its publicists say.
Another $1.5-million project is planned to restore the ship above its waterline. Some work has been done on the windows and stern, Ramsey said, but a close look shows obvious wear and tear.
The ship will have to be dry docked for about a year when the next fix-up phase begins, Ramsey said.
The money to pay for the job isn't flowing over the rails.
"It's very slow because the ship costs a million a year to run," Ramsey said.
The organization welcomes sponsorships, she said. Information about the Tall Ship Bounty organization can be found on the Web site.
