The Coast Guard hearing investigating the loss of the tall ship Bounty has taken some intersteing turns over the last week. The most intersting came Friday in the testomony of third mate Dan Cleveland.
Commander Kevin Carroll, as he has with many other witnesses, asked Cleveland his impression of a statement made by the Bounty's captain, Robin Walbridge, to a videographer in Belfast, Maine. The videographer had posed a question about sailing Bounty in foul weather.
Walbridge replied that there is no such thing as bad weather.
"We chase hurricanes," the skipper told the videographer.
Most mariners -- even amateur sailors like I -- thought that statement was absurd.
Carroll wanted to know what Cleveland thought.
The answer demonstrated how gray the area of "facts" can be.
Cleveland said in the four years he had sailed aboard Bounty, he had never heard Walbridge make a comment like that.
But, Cleveland said, what he thought Walbridge was referring to was not chasing hurricanes but following them. [I'm not attempting to quote Cleveland directly. I'm trying for the sense of what he said.]
If Bounty could tuck in behind a hurricane after it passed, it could "chase" after it in fair, strong winds on a smooth sea, Cleveland suggested. In fact, he had done just that under Walbridge's command, he said.
To me, the explanation made perfect sense. Walbridge's glib comment wasn't looney at all.
The hearing has three more days to go. Then Commander Carroll will have months to sift the information his has gathered, to attempt to find black and white in all that gray.
Still to be decided: Was there as sane reason for Walbridge to leave New London and, three days later, sail across the path of an historic hurricane. I'm waiting to see.

The first day of the Coast Guard investigative hearing on the loss of the tall ship HMS Bounty is past. The owner of the Bounty, Robert Hansen, a wealthy Long Island businessman, took the Fifth and wouldn't talk. First Mate John Svendsen, 41, was grilled for about four hours and gave all the blame for taking the ship into the path of Hurricane Sandy to his dead captain, Robin Walbridge. The parents of dead crew member Claudene Christian were there, represented by a lawyer who spent every opportunity showing them how valuable he was and, as a consequence, getting over-ruled by the Coast Guard commander who is the lead investigator.
I'm not sure what was learned.
Commander Carroll kept coming back to the video posted on You-Tube in which Capt. Walbridge seems to boast that the Bounty "chases hurricanes." He wanted to know whether Svendsen saw the ship chasing hurricanes and if that's what it was doing when it was caught by Sandy and sunk off North Carolina.
I'm curious to hear what other crew members may see. I've spent about six hours talking with one young Bounty crew member whose vivid description of the hours aboard when they sailed from New London, CT toward the storm is gut-wrenching. And we're not done talking.
This is going to be a thrilling story to write when we've gathered all the information. Here's hoping we are able to answer some of the many questions that I believe these hearings will fail to address.

I'm writing this on the new Dell laptop. Last night, I attempted to take the minutes of the monthly meeting of our local boat club -- the Red Dragon Canoe Club -- on this machine. It was a scary proposition. About every 17 key strokes, a header template appeared on the screen in blue. I had no idea why, except that I was deploying my fingers in a way that brushed some surface wired to create headers.
Now I'm typing on a keyboard separate from the laptop, and I have a mouse plugged in to a USB port so I won't have to use the touch pad on the laptop. I'm not making too many mistakes, and when I do, I can correct them without sending the laptop into an alternative digital universe.
When it comes to avoiding more modern technology, I may have discovered a useful path.

I've discovered a compelling argument for gun control.
It's called Windows 8.
For the Bounty project, which will require scores of interviews, I decided it would be smart to replace the laptop that I got, used, when I joined Soundings Magazine in 2005. It's a good old wagon, but it's about to break down.
So like a thoroughly modern man, I went to the nearest big box store -- Best Buy -- and found a modestly priced Toshiba that looked like it would work. I didn't know a thing about the operating system and, had I asked, it would have meant little to me when they said it was Windows 8.
I asked for the Microsoft Office software, which boosted the price by about one third, paid the bill and went home.
Turning the machine on was as simple as pushing a button. There ended the simplicity. I needed help just to find the machine's "desktop". I called the 800 number. The fellow (not in Asia but in Florida, I think) tried and tried to help me before he told me to take the machine back to the store.
At the store, a man who seemed knowledgeable and competent spent about 45 minutes trying to show me how Windows 8 works. Then he said: "You're just going to have to get used to it," even as he looked at the glaze on my eyes. He told me I had to move ahead with the times.
The experience was similar to what you might feel if you walked into a Chevy dealer (or pick any brand) and said: I'd like to buy a new car, and the salesperson replied: Sorry, we don't sell cars any more. You're going to have to learn to fly a jet.
Another example: Your alarm sounds in the morning and the first person you encounter -- maybe your wife or husband -- is speaking Russian, as is everyone else whom you meet that day.
Suddenly, the language of computers with which I'm familiar has been replaced by something that's entirely different, that shares nothing with the Windows XP that I've been using or even with Windows 7.
I took the Toshiba to customer service and returend it. Late last night, I found a Dell computer on amazon - new -- that I could buy with Windows 7 installed. It's supposed to be delivered during the week.
But there was a time at Best Buy when, had I access to an assault rifle, I would have repelled the digital assault that was being inflicted on me and taken out as many computers and computer sales people as there were bullets in my magazine. And I would have felt (momentarily) justified.