ld april may

Through the
Hurst Narrows:
HMS Bounty
For almost 480 years, Hurst Castle has
stood sentry over the western Solent, its
brooding walls witness to many a historic
ship that has passed through the Hurst
Narrows. In this, the first of a series of
articles, Tricia Hayne takes a look at
arguably the most famous of them all, HMS
Bounty.
Artist unknown
Originally a collier by the name of Bethia, the
215-ton Bounty was built in 1784 at Kingston
upon Hull, but within three years she had
been snapped up by the Royal Navy for
£1,950. Her future role, to collect breadfruit
plants from Tahiti as a possible source of
cheap food for slaves in the West Indies, was
a far cry from her industrial beginnings.
After weeks of frustrating hold ups, William
Bligh finally set sail from Spithead on 23
December 1787, with a crew of 45 men. The
three-masted vessel under his command,
equipped with four four-pounder cannons
and ten swivel guns, must have looked quite
a sight in full sail as she passed the castle,
but it’s unlikely that Bligh had time for such
niceties. His relief at finally weighing anchor
may well have been tempered with concern
for conditions on his cramped ship, which
had been refitted for the mission, and about
what lay ahead. His concerns were more
than justified. Attempting to round Cape
Horn, he and his crew battled torrential rain
and heavy seas for 30 days before conceding
defeat and changing course for the Cape of
Good Hope. With a refit in southern Africa,
it was to be a full ten months before they
arrived in Tahiti.
Life in the South Pacific may sound pretty
idyllic, and certainly the crew enjoyed some
of their time ashore, but faith in their
captain was waning fast. By the time that
the Bounty left the island with her cargo of
breadfruit on 6 April 1789, the mood was
already sour, and within barely three weeks,
under the leadership of the master’s mate,
Fletcher Christian, it had turned mutinous.
Taken by surprise, Bligh was cast adrift with
18 men. That he made it back to England is
a credit to his seamanship. The rest of the
crew, however, returned to Tahiti on board
the Bounty before finally making their home
on Pitcairn Island. And there, having
removed everything of value from the ship,
they set it alight.
Although random relics of the ship were
removed during subsequent expeditions, the
wreck itself lies slowly rotting in the shallow
waters off Pitcairn Island, where it remained
undiscovered until 1957. It was to be
another 41 years before the last of the ship’s
four- pounders was recovered by
archaeologists from James Cook University.
A splendid model of HMS Bounty has been
kindly loaned to the Friends of Hurst Castle
by the family of the late Fred Mann, who
spent two years building his scale replica to
the finest detail. Keep an eye out for it in
the castle’s west wing when this is finally reopened
to the public.
The Friends of Hurst Castle was formed in
1986 to support this historic building, which
is owned by English Heritage. Why not join
us? For details, contact Tricia Hayne at
trjhayne@gmail.com
Please mention The Lymington Directory when responding to advertisements
17