PICTOU – Walter MacKay took a moment Monday to remember life on The Bounty.
The Caribou resident is one of only a few Pictou County residents who had the rare opportunity of sailing on the famed tall ship that sank off the shores of the eastern United States Monday.
"It was 15 days of hell and four days of fun," he said with a laugh while looking throughout newspaper clippings and photos from his 19-day voyage that started on June 17, 1965.
MacKay was in vocational school studying diesel mechanics when his cousin, Capt. Ross MacKay of Toney River, asked the school if Walter could have a leave of absence to sail with him on The Bounty from New York to Florida.
"Back then it was quite a publicity stunt so they sent me on my way," he said.
MacKay worked in the engine room of the ship and said there was always lots of excitement in the run of a day to keep him entertained.
The HMS Bounty, built in Lunenburg, was one of the most famous ships in the world. It was built for the 1962 movie, Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard and Richard Harris. It has sailed around the world and was featured in other major motion pictures, such as Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest with Johnny Depp. It visited Pictou this past summer as part of the Tall Ships Festival.
It ran into stormy waters Sunday and at 7:30 p.m. it sent out a distress call that it had lost power and the pumps were unable to keep up with the dewatering. The crew was ordered off the ship early Monday and a few hours later it sank. Fourteen crew members were taken to hospital and are expected to survive. The search is ongoing for two people who are unaccounted for.
MacKay said his heart goes out to those who lived through the ordeal, because he knows how it is to be on the ocean when trouble arises.
"I've been thinking about that ever since I heard about it today," he said. " It's not giving me any encouragement."
The Caribou resident says he didn't need to a movie set to make his time on The Bounty adventurous. There were incidents of two separate fires on board while he was sailing to Florida and the ship also got caught in a wind funnel that rolled The Bounty on its side.
"It rolled it so far, the fire extinguishers came off the wall and when they hit the floor, they were activated," he said. "What a mess we had."
But overall, MacKay said it was a chance of a lifetime to sail on a ship that no longer exists. He said he made good friends while on board and was well fed by a cook hired to keep everyone happy.
"We had the very best of eating and everything was there for you," he said. "The cook would make up the stuff for us and it was all there. All you had to do was go in and help yourself."
MacKay isn't the only one who had a heavy heart on Monday after hearing the news of the ship's sinking and the desperate rescue of crew members.
Pictou resident Elwin Hemphill's mind immediately went to that of his brother Ralph who was a first mate on The Bounty shortly after it finished filming Mutiny on Bounty.
"I've been thinking about Ralph today and all the things he did on The Bounty," said Hemphill.
Ralph Hemphill received his captain's papers in 1952 and had experience with sailing ships. He studied ships with square riggers which ended up giving him the opportunity of a lifetime.
He flew to California in the mid-1960s and worked on the ship's rigging. As part of a promotional tour for the movie, Mutiny on the Bounty, he sailed with The Bounty along the western coast of the United States as well as the eastern coast and later on to France and England.
The captain at the time didn't have his papers for sailing square riggers so even though Ralph was first mate, he did have his turn at the wheel.
Elwin said his brother had many stories from his time on the ship, but the most memorable was about a famous stowaway.
"The actor John Mills was one of the guys on the Mutiny on the Bounty and he was Haley Mills' father," said Elwin. "Haley used to come down to the ship every day and climb the riggings with the guys on the crew when it was docked in England. Ralph was first mate deck officer at the time and when they left London, he said he knew something was wrong because the crew was incredibly quiet. Finally, someone confessed that Haley was stowed away in the rope locker because she wanted to go back to North America."
Elwin said she was taken back to London on a pilot boat, but she left the crew with a great story to tell for years to come.
However, he said, his brother didn't speak as fondly about other movie stars he met while they were promoting the movie.
"Ralph didn't like Marlon Brando," he said. "He thought he was a real twit. He was so full of himself, but Trevor Howard and John Mills were real gentlemen."