News Release

HMAV Bounty replica delayed in Pacific voyage

ANGWIN (Napa County) Calif., January 17, 2003—The replica of HMAV Bounty, based in Sydney, Australia, has been refused permission to sail for Wellington, New Zealand, there to be refurbished for extensive voyaging in the Pacific, because the vessel has failed its "blue water" certification.

Scheduled for a future voyage that would include Pitcairn Island, Bounty is expected to remain at Sydney for at least a month while she is brought up to seaworthy standards demanded by inspectors.

The fully rigged, three masted replica was built in Whangarel, New Zealand, in 1978 for the "Mutiny on the Bounty" major motion picture that starred actors Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. The ship carries an impressive 900 square meters of canvas as 19 sails and 18 kilometers of rope in her rigging.

The replica Bounty has been used extensively in film and television programs. She has sailed on several of the world's oceans, appearing in 1986 at the World Expo in Vancouver, Canada.

Pitcairn Islands Study Center, 1 Angwin Ave., Angwin, CA, USA. Herbert Ford, 707-965-6625, 707-965-2047, Fax: 707-965-6504, Email: hford@puc.edu, Website: http://library.puc.edu/pitcairn