Rescue of the Bounty by Michael J. Tougias & Douglas A. Campbell

Rescue of the Bounty by Michael J. Tougias & Douglas A. Campbell

Author:Michael J. Tougias & Douglas A. Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner


CHAPTER NINETEEN

PROBLEMS EVERYWHERE

The entire crew on Bounty were diligently working—some individuals focusing on a single problem, others freelancing from one emergency to another as their effort was needed. There was now no orderly watch system, no organized work party, no sense of command except that within each member of the crew; their motivation was to save Bounty, to save themselves.

At nine o’clock at night, the second mate, Matt Sanders, had been in the heat and noise of the engine room since his last watch ended at four o’clock. He had gone there to keep the bilge pumps running, but instead of bringing the flooding under control, he was wrestling with various mechanical problems even as the level of the water rose.

When the starboard generator began surging and its power output fell—the port generator had stopped working long ago—it was decided that the fuel filters needed to be changed. Sanders, a tall, athletically built man, took on the job.

The filter on the starboard generator’s diesel engine was on the back side. To get to it, Sanders had to wedge himself behind the hot engine and get in a position where he could twist the filter free.

But first, the generator had to be shut down. This meant the ship had no electrical current, and except for flashlights Bounty went dark.

The starboard propulsion engine was running well, still driving Bounty forward enough to hold it in place, hove to. That meant the portable hydraulic pump, which ran off the power takeoff shaft of that engine, could be operated, although it was only taking water from the engine room. In all the other bilge compartments, water was accumulating unchecked.

Sanders got into position and removed the old filter. Then Chief Mate Svendsen handed him a replacement filter. It took a while for Sanders to get the new filter seated properly. He had never replaced this filter in his time aboard Bounty, so the whole process may have taken up to forty minutes. Sanders lost track of time. Nor did he pay attention to the water that rose up the planking and soaked him when Bounty rolled to starboard. He was focused on his work.

With the new filter in place, Sanders was able to get the generator running. It started right up. Finally, something mechanical had responded the way it was supposed to.

But in the time it had taken to replace one filter, the water had risen to two feet above the engine-room floorboards, within a foot of the elevated generator.

His success restarting the generator freed Sanders to return to work on the bilge pump manifold. He was not alone. A parade of crew members—Svendsen, Jones, Salapatek, Faunt—came and went, performing other work in the engine room and along the lower deck. Occasionally, Robin Walbridge visited the engine room, too.

And the water rose, inch by inch, until it was thigh to waist deep on the starboard side and shorted out the starboard generator. Sanders went to the tween deck, where he found Walbridge. The diesel was still running, but a dangerous electrical current was in the water.



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