This is Dean Calin; in addition to being the founder of the Maritime Music Directory International, I am also the founder, in 2003, of the maritime music vocal group, Bounding Main. Bounding Main was performing together for just one year when they were hired in 2004 by Patti Lock to perform at Kenosha Days of Discovery, a five-day celebration of maritime adventure that included three tall ships in the city harbor. For us, this was a magnificent confirmation of our purpose – to honor the history of maritime music, associated with the age of sail. We joined veteran performers Tom & Chris Kastle and David HB Drake, whom we would come to know well and to entertain with at many, future tall ship events.
Between our shows we explored the harbor park, meeting vendors such as Ships of Glass and Linda Anderson Photography. We saw many people waiting for deck tours of the U.S. Brig Niagara out of Erie, Pennsylvania, Milwaukee’s own S/V Denis Sullivan, Bob Marthai’s Windy II from Chicago’s Navy Pier, the Boston Harbor pilot boat, the Highlander Sea and, famously, the Bounty, a Lunenburg-built reproduction for the 1962 Marlon Brando film, Mutiny on the Bounty. We were all rather amazed and star struck by the whole thing. This was our first exposure to real tall ships and it was a great deal to take in.
The lines for the tall ships were considerable, but suddenly, there was a break in the line for the Bounty so we clambered aboard! We sought out a deck hand to ask permission to sing aboard her – permission was granted! Decked out in our Elizabethan era clothing we sang in anachronistic delight aboard this 20th century reproduction of an 18th century British armed vessel! The crew and customers seemed to enjoy what we sang almost as much as we loved singing it! The Bounty was the first tall ship that we ever sang upon. We have gone on to perform maritime music across North America and Europe for over two decades and counting.
We later learned that our friend, David HB Drake, had been hired, on an emergency basis, to play the shantyman on the Bounty by his old environmental theater friend, Bob Dawson. Drake was doing a deck tour of the Bounty when she was in port in Milwaukee during a tall ship festival there. Surprised to see each other, Dawson had been hired to portray Captain Bligh during a 1990 tour the Bounty was on. Their original shantyman had taken ill and Dawson needed a replacement right away! Drake sang and toured with the ship for several months, on two oceans, and that began his foray into performing maritime music for the next several decades.
On October 29, 2012 we watched with dread the news broadcasts about the Bounty’s sinking off the coast of North Carolina while trying to out-maneuver Hurricane Sandy. We learned of the tragic loss of crewman Claudene Christian, just five months aboard, and Captain Robin Walbridge, a veteran seaman who had mastered storms and rough seas on prior adventures. The 50 year-old sailing vessel, while suffering from critical mechanical breakdowns and considerable wood rot, did not break up when she went down, but down she did go.
Several years later, on Facebook, I improbably stumbled across one of the surviving crewmembers of The Bounty. We “friended” each other and exchanged messages of all things nautical. She has remained in the maritime industry and has crewed on many different kinds of vessels. She has also continued her education and may go on to a captain’s rating for future assignments. One of the struggles she shared with me was her survivor’s guilt; that she was able to be ejected from the ship in her Gumby suit and then crawl into one of two emergency life rafts was miraculous. But, why her and not Claudine, or Capt. Walbridge? Testimony by other crewmembers and the examination of Christian’s recovered body revealed that both had been severely injured prior to or during the capsizing of the ship. Fate is cold and cruel. I wish my friend peace.
So, today, October 29, 2024, twelve years later, I toast the survivors and victims of the sinking of the dear Bounty.