'Mutiny on the Bounty' party leaves Sydney today for Tonga

by Nancy Knudsen on 9 Apr 2010 He's sailed around the world single-handed and he's over-wintered with his wife in the Antarctic, but the adventure that has him leaving Sydney today is bound to eclipse both. Two of his crew have backed out, Pete Steir and teen circumnavigator Mike Perham with complications after appendix surgery, but on April 28 Don McIntyre with a new crew will set out to recreate Captain Bligh's incredible journey after the famed Mutiny of the Bounty.

Today 53-year-old Don McIntyre, with a crew of three - one original crew member, Hong Kong based Englishman David Wilkinson and the two new crew, David Pryce, an experienced Antarctic and Southern Ocean sailor and Chris Wilde, an 18-year old student with no sailing experience, will set off for Tonga, heading for the exact position where Captain Bligh's voyage began in 1789. In 1789, Bligh was cast adrift with crew in an open wooden boat by his mutinous crew, who now doubt thought they would perish.

Abandoned in the middle of the Pacific, Bligh and the crew sailed an incredible 3,700 miles to safety, scavenging what they could along the way to survive. The 48 day journey from Tonga to Timor, which has been celebrated as one of the greatest navigation, leadership and survival stories of all time, has been told and retold by word and movie.

To repeat the journey faithfully, Don and his party will recreate the conditions that faced Captain Bligh and his men. Food and water for 14 days, no compromises with the 20th Century - no charts, no GPS - not even any toilet paper!
However, the story will be told as they go by the latest in communication technology. Their position will automatically be logged onto Google Earth maps for the world to follow, every two hours during the voyage. Daily Blogs, Photo’s and audio clips will tell the story.

The date of the 28th April has been chosen because it is the same date that Bligh was off-loaded into the ocean, 221 years ago. The lifeboat is a 25 ft length 7 ft beam open boat, which is not self-righting. If the boat goes over in a storm, the crew will have to right it manually.

'We have no charts so we have serious challenges to get through the Fiji group of islands,' said Don last week. 'And all the simple things like no toilet paper, no torches are going to add pressure and make things really difficult,' he added. 'But I'm more excited about this adventure than any other because I'm at one with the sea, it's raw and honest, there's no technology giving us any assistance, it's a great historic parallel and basically it's just a lot of fun.'

As well as embarking on the adventure, Don McIntyre and his crew are attempting to raise over $250,000 for The Sheffield Institute Foundation for Motor Neurone Disease (SIF) which is building the world's first research Institute into Motor Neurone Disease (MND), Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

To learn more about the expedition, go to www.taliskerbountyboat.com

Here below, in a video made before the two crew were constrained to pull out, they explain the journey in vivid detail.