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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

HMS Bounty to visit Belfast Maine This Week

The Bounty will be at the public wharf at the end of Main Street in Belfast, Maine Saturday and Sunday, August 11-12, and will be open for public tours.
"The Bounty is an enlarged reconstruction of the original sailing ship HMS Bounty, which served in the Royal Navy.
Bounty was commissioned by the MGM film studio for the 1962 film named Mutiny on the Bounty. This vessel was built to the original ship's drawings from files in the British admiralty archives, and in the traditional manner in a shipyard in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. All dimensions were increased by approximately one third to accommodate the large 70 mm cameras used in the filming.
Bounty was scheduled to be burned at the end of the film, however Marlon Brando threatened to walk off the set in protest, so MGM kept this vessel in service. After filming and a worldwide promotional tour, MGM berthed the ship in St. Petersburg, Florida as a permanent tourist attraction, where she stayed until the mid-1980s. In 1986 Ted Turner acquired the MGM film library and the Bounty with it. The ship was used for promotional and entertaining activities, and was used during the filming of Treasure Island with Charlton Heston in 1989. In 1993, Turner donated the ship to the Fall River Chamber Foundation, which established the Tall Ship Bounty Foundation to operate the ship as an educational venture. In February 2001 Bounty was purchased from the Foundation by the HMS Bounty Organization LLC.[1] The ship is for sale as of 2012 for 4.6 million USD.[1]
At one point in its life lack of maintenance caused the vessel to temporarily lose her United States Coast Guard license, but the Bounty was restored. The vessel's bottom planking was restored at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard in 2002. Moored in its winter home in St. Petersburg, Florida, it again became available for charter, excursions, sail-training, and movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End,[2] In April 2006, the Bounty again arrived in Boothbay Harbor for further renovation including refurbishing the ship's front end and topside decking. Following this renovation, the Bounty was scheduled to repeat the famous voyage of the original Bounty" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounty_(1960_ship)]

1 comment:

  1. The ship will actually be open for tours on Saturday and Sunday only due to another boat being in the docking space scheduled for Bounty's use on Friday morning. Tour prices are $10 for adults & $5 for kids and seniors. Children under 5 are free!

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