HMS Bounty
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Bounty | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | collier, survey vessel | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | United Kingdom | Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country |
| Operator | Royal Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | Mutiny on the Bounty | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | South Pacific Ocean | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Position | -25.0686, -130.0953 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
HMS Bounty, also known as HMAV (His Majesty's Armed Vessel) Bounty, was a British merchant ship that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the British West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian, an incident now popularly known as the Mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island in the Southern Pacific Ocean in 1790. An American adventurer helped land several remains of Bounty in 1957.
Diving & visiting
Luis Marden rediscovered the remains of Bounty in January 1957. After spotting remains of the rudder (which had been found in 1933 by Parkin Christian, and is still displayed in the Fiji Museum in Suva), he persuaded his editors and writers to let him dive off Pitcairn Island, where the rudder had been found. Despite the warnings of one islander – "Man, you gwen be dead as a hatchet!" – Marden dived for several days in the dangerous swells near the island, and found the remains of the ship: a rudder pin, nails, a ships boat oarlock, fittings and a Bounty anchor that he raised.
Location
- Recorded position: -25.0686, -130.0953 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: South Pacific Ocean
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Bounty (revision 1370370517), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Discovery of the wreck”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
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