This has nothing to do with Lowell, but it’s an amazing video from last week’s rescue of survivors from the HMS Bounty, the tall ship replica of the nineteenth century British warship, which sank off the coast of North Carolina during Hurricane Sandy. This 11 minute long video was posted on YouTube by the US Coast Guard. It features the four person crew of a MH-60 helicopter (i.e., a “Blackhawk”) retrieving survivors from the water. The calm male voice is the pilot, the equally calm female voice is the co-pilot, who is calling out the approach of waves that sometimes topped 30 feet in height. The exhausted male voice is the hoist operator is seen lowering and raising the rescue basket as he dangles out the door of the aircraft. The fourth crew member, Dan the Rescue Swimmer, is not heard from but we repeatedly see him lowered into the ferocious sea to drag yet another PIW (person in water) into the rescue basket. Fourteen of the Bounty’s crew of sixteen were saved. One woman, a descendant of Fletcher Christian, died in the water but her body was recovered. The ship’s captain was never found.

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