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.