Images from Bounty
In July of 2008, a photographer named Robert Demar took a two-day trip aboard Bounty from Port Angeles, WA to Port Albernie, B.C.; taking over 2,000
Mario Vittone is a retired U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer, maritime safety expert, and investigative journalist with 22 years of combined service in the Navy and Coast Guard. He graduated from Helicopter Rescue Swimmer School in 1994 and flew two tours at Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and one tour at Air Station New Orleans, qualifying on both the HH-60 Jayhawk and HH-65 Dolphin. In November 1994, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for rescuing a family of four — including a four-month-old infant — from the sailing vessel Marine Flower II during Hurricane Gordon, 400 miles off the coast of North Carolina. He was named Coast Guard Enlisted Person of the Year for 2006. Vittone spent his final four years (2009-2013) as a vessel inspector and maritime accident investigator in Norfolk, Virginia, drawing on that experience for his eight-part investigative series on the sinking of the tall ship Bounty during Hurricane Sandy. He received the Alex Haley Award for Journalism in 2009. His 2010 article "Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning," explaining how the instinctive drowning response makes real drowning nearly invisible to bystanders, has reached more than 40 million readers, been translated into 14 languages, and republished in over 250 newspapers and magazines including Slate. Vittone's maritime safety writing has appeared in Yachting, Soundings Online, SaltWater Sportsman, PassageMaker, Reader's Digest, and The Washington Post. He wrote 42 Lifelines safety columns for Soundings Online. He serves on the board of the National Drowning Prevention Alliance and the Joshua Collingsworth Memorial Foundation.
In July of 2008, a photographer named Robert Demar took a two-day trip aboard Bounty from Port Angeles, WA to Port Albernie, B.C.; taking over 2,000
Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of Mario Vittone’s 8-part series from the U.S. Coast Guard’s formal hearing into the October 29, 2012
What happened to Bounty on the morning of October 29th, 2012? Finding out what went wrong and why, when things happened or didn’t, and who said what to
At the start of each day of the hearings, Commander Kevin Carroll does the same thing: he reads a statement. He tells all in attendance, “The purpose
Tangled in rigging, he was dragged under the water again. This time he wasn’t coming up. With no chance to get a breath and struggling to free himself,
Sometimes bad things happen. We do something that we shouldn’t and that leads to tragedy. Do the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong thing anytime
Tall ship sailors are so easy to like. When you meet them, within minutes, you know you are meeting someone who is doing exactly what they love. They are
When solving a mystery, an investigator looks for evidence. On the third day of testimony at the joint Coast Guard/NTSB hearings in Portsmouth, Virginia, I was
The witness, Todd Kosakowski, looked at Coast Guard’s evidence # CG-41: a series of 29 photographs he had taken of Bounty during its most recent yard
By Mario Vittone As I write this, the Coast Guard is still searching for two sailors missing from the the tall ship Bounty; the ship itself lies on the
A little, Sort Of. Back on February 1st 2009, though boat owners and ship riders didn’t hear it, there were celebrations all over the rescue world as the
Standing on the bridge wing of a container ship years ago, a captain was telling me all about the Williamson Turn and how effective it was at putting his
Sitting in the chief’s office of Coast Guard Station Fairport Harbor in Mentor, Ohio, I’m reading the legal release that I have to sign if I want
Imagine, if you can, the confluence of events that would have to take place to leave you with marine flares being your primary method of signaling distress.
The reaction to an article posted here on gCaptain and again here on my site has been just this side of overwhelming. I’d like to thank everyone who
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