The Talisker Bounty Boat

Full construction photo's are in the "Gallery". Build specifications are listed at the end of this section.

William Bligh's open boat was a large fullbodied anchor handling long-boat, that was normally manned by a crew of 15 when it was used to position or recover the Bounty's main anchors. It was a big heavy boat, only 23ft long but carrying it's beam well forward and having a transom hung rudder with a full length keel. (see Child of Bounty in "Gallery") Following the Mutiny when Bligh set off with eighteen of his men and a considerable amount of equipment but little food, the freeboard was reported to be about nine inches.

For this Anniversary Expedition, the "Talisker Bounty Boat" used is based on an 18th century open whale hunting boat. It is 25ft long, 6ft 4 inches beam and quite shallow, so whilst it's actually 2ft longer than Bligh's orginal boat, the "Talisker Bounty Boat" is less than half the volume of Bligh's and weighs only 1.6 tons fully loaded with all equipment and crew. The projected freeboard is around 16 inches.

All the main objectives of this adventure, such as facing similar physical and emotional challenges, utilising the same navigation equipment and solving the same problems, are just as relevant in our "Whale Boat" as in Bligh's long boat.

So why not use a true replica... The answer is simple... the cost is too great to build it. With no further use for the boat at the end of the expedition, the whole voyage may have become an impossible dream. Already the budget for this expedition is topping $175,000. As a bonus, our "Whale Boat" just happen to be a near replica of the "James Caird", the boat Shackleton sailed from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Historians and academics often debate which is truely the greatest open boat voyage in maritime history... Bligh or Shackleton... most concede that the "Bounty Boat" voyage is the greatest. So if we survive that with our humour intact, we may have to think about the other.

LOA 25ft, Beam 6.3ft, Light displacement 700KG, loaded displacement with 4 crew 1.6 Tonnes.

For over 20 years I (Don McIntyre) had dreamt of sailing Bligh's epic voyage and I hate regrets, so one very hot day in China, while agonizing over slow progress on "ICE" our new steel Expedition Motor Sailor, I decided it was now or never and the 220th anniversary of the Mutiny on the Bounty seemed like the right time. That was June 2007.

There is something very special about putting yourself into situations that once inspired you as a kid, or left you feeling in awe at the experience of others. Three times before I had done it in my own way...Sir Robin Knox-Johnston had been my childhood hero when in 1968 he became the first person to sail solo, non-stop around the world. This ultimately led me to race in the 1990 BOC Challenge Solo Around the World Yacht Race. Sir Douglas Mawson was my Antarctic hero, so it was only natural, that in 1995 Margie and I would live a year of total isolation in a small box, chained to rocks, only a few hundred meters from his hut. It was the windiest spot on the face of the earth and we were the first people to live there since Mawson in 1911-12 .Then in 2007 I tried to experience something of what McIntyre and Gobels endured in 1924, when they became the first people to fly around Australia. I did that in an open cockpit ultra-lite Gyro-copter, 13000km in 20 days, my own world first flight.

On each occasion I was able to better understand some of the things they lived through. With Bligh, I could never comprehend how he and his men survived that journey, or how he navigated all that way without charts. Whilst it would be great to build an exact replica of his boat, I did not have the huge dollars for that and I was after the experience of sailing the same waters, with some of the same equipment , facing the same problems and challenges. Obviously I would not have 18 others in the boat anyway, so it's not the same with a half empty Bligh boat. It therefore seemed right to use a smaller traditional open boat with less people, yet keep the risk/challenge factors similar, so the hunt began.

I looked around America and England for any suitable existing boats and for a while, even considered a Fibreglass Drascomb GIG out of England. Eventually I was settling on the idea of building a traditional plywood longboat in China. Then one day a small add appeared in our local Hobart newspaper, "Whale Boat" for sale....thinking it would be an old WWII surplus Navy Whaler, I rang and to my surprise it was a new replica of an 1800's boat that was built for an historical voyage around Tasmania only one year before. The attempt was cancelled following a capsize and the loss of vital equipment, so she had only been used for a few days! It had been stored in an old apple shed only 40 minutes drive from our house and when I saw her for the first time, I knew we had something!

The hull was very well built by Bruce Darcey. It would need some major modifications for our trip, but with a new rig and the right preparations we had our boat. It was moved to a shed in Cygnet where for nine months Doug Campbell worked full time, six days a week, sometimes 10 hours a day to get the mods done by Sept 08.

As at the end of October we have only been sailing twice...once on launch day and again some weeks later for some "top end "sea trials when 30kts were forecast. We actually experienced 50kts with sever squalls and some strange looks from shore... Talisker Bounty Boat is good for the job.

Work yet to be completed includes the electrical system, antifouling and final fit-out of gear and equipment storage systems. The last major test will be completely capsizing and inverting the fully loaded expedition-ready boat, to check if the crew can roll her back upright...we have no idea if this will be possible, but should find out in Feb 2010....

Lapstrake/Clinker built, 12mm Gaboon marine ply planks, celerytop ribs epoxy glued and fastened. Celerytop trim, treated pine seats, silicone bronze bolts, nails and cast fittings, oregon masts spars and oars. Tas Oak sampson posts and bollards. Removable timber rudder with SS gudgeons/pintles. All timber treated with epoxy timber preservative, then coats of polyurethane varnish. Exterior hull paint , brush on polyurethane and centre sections of underwater antifouling fluro orange colour. Teak wood blocks, stainless standing rigging, polyester running rigging. Aluminum centre-plate (may change to steel as per original design), five watetight lockers, 300lb removable ballast beside centrecase, port/stbd large handrails under hull, hand-stitched bolt ropes on polyester sails, polyester cockpit lee-cloths and deck covers.