#tallship – A Tall Ship replica 18th-century sailing vessel, a visitor to Irish ports in 2009, was caught in Hurricane Sandy's and sunk leaving the captain missing and forcing the crew into liferafts in rough seas off the North American coast.
The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 people by helicopter and spent much of the day searching for two missing crew members.
One of them, 42-year-old Claudene Christian, was found unresponsive in the water on Monday evening. She was taken to hospital while rescuers continued to search for the missing captain of the HMS Bounty, 63-year-old Robin Walbridge.
Both Christian and Wallbridge were wearing survival suits designed to help keep them afloat and protected from cold waters for up to 15 hours.
The famed H.M.S. Bounty, led by Captain Robin Walbridge and a crew of 18, arrived in Cobh at the Port of Cork in the summer of 2009. In June last year the 200-tonne ship arrived into Belfast Lough for the Belfast Titanic Maritime Festival.
The HMS Bounty was built at Smith and Ruhland Shipyard in Lunenburg, N.S. for the 1962 film "Mutiny on the Bounty" - had left Connecticut last week en route to Florida.
Coast Guard Vice Adm. Robert Parker, Operational Commander for the Atlantic Area, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that the ship had taken on about three metres of water when the crew abandoned it.
Amid high winds and 5.5-metre seas, two helicopters flew in for the rescue around dawn Monday, plucking crew members from the lifeboats.
