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A SEARCH is continuing for two crew members from the tall ship ‘HMS Bounty’ – a replica of the ship made famous by a mutiny in 1789 – after the boat sank in Hurricane Sandy.
14 people were rescued from life rafts after being forced to abandon the ship as it floundered during high winds earlier today.
The US Coast Guard said 14 people had been rescued this morning when two helicopters were able to rescue the crew from rubber life boats.
Those sailors are being treated by medical personnel in Elizabeth City in North Carolina.
A third helicopter crew has been continuing the search for the two crew members who did not make it onto the life boat, as well as a Lockheed C-130 Hercules military aircraft.
Those crews were able to locate the radio signal from the boat, built in 1960, which was taking on water and had no propulsive power.
The BBC quoted a coastguard commander who said the crew had been able to keep the boat afloat for most of last night, after it begin to take water, but the ship had to be abandoned at first light this morning.
The two missing crewmen are said to be wearing ‘survival suits’, which should be able to keep them afloat and warm for longer than a traditional lifejacket.
The ship is an exact replica of the original HMS Bounty, a merchant boat which was bought by Britain’s Royal Navy in order to run a botanical expedition to the Pacific Ocean.
The mission, captained by Lieutenant William Bligh, ended in revolt when the crew seized the vessel and evicted Bligh and several other sailors. The crew sailed for a further nine months, hoping to evade the chase of the Navy, before setting fire to the boat in January 1790.
Its wreck was discovered in 1957, leading to the modern replica being built in 1960 for use in a 1962 film about the mutiny. The boat was later used for shooting two of Disney’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies.
The owners had been trying to sell the ship since mid 2010, however, and had toured it on both sides of the Atlantic hoping to find a buyer.
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They hire the 130 staff in order to automate the jobs of 1000s of staff. Then once the 130 have their jobs mostly done they can outsource maintenance of the system they created to some crowd in India and send the 130 home as well.
Eventually it will be just Mr. BOI laying in a hammock between two palm trees on the beach in the Bahamas with a cocktail in one hand and his phone in the other watching his bank balance steadily increase.
Fees will remain as high as ever if not higher, if you need to talk to a human to do something it will be nigh on impossible.
@Quiet Goer: they have moved to electronic forms with no need to be in branch to open an account and those hires will be to push on with the electronic stuff, has really sped along the old paper process
@Quiet Goer: withdrawal syndrome eh!
@Quiet Goer: Mr BOI and Hans Gruber must be going to the same beach……20% rates, I hear.
They close every outlet in the country yet. To contact them you need an email address. But if you owe them money they ring you on a private number.
They could do with a few people on their Mortgages phone line too. Just spent 24 mins on hold to get through to them. Funny enough, when you select the option for a new mortgage, you’re put through to someone straight away.
Outsourcing wasn’t as good as they thought it would be I guess! Given that they laid off or outsourced the vast majority of IT staff in the last decade.
@Melissa OHara: was it not just IT infrastructure and support that was outsourced. App development may still be in house.
Please please keep some humans… Online does not replace the need to talk and be heard and understood…. No Bot can do that with any degree of satisfaction….
@Jackie Healy:
Since when is a bank a psychiatrist?
The government is a major share holder in BOI and has not brought them to heal in any of their restructuring policies. Obviously big business owns the government and its cronies.
@Seán Dillon: Gov in the minority with 12%. On the sidelines waiting to cash out.
%14 oops
@Seán Dillon:
The bank is slowing healing from 2008 upset.
A few more years after full recovery, hopefully there will be a punter around to take that 14% off the Government’s hands at a decent price.
Off loading the larger chunks of equity held in the other two will take a fair while longer.
They have how many I T specialists in k b c . That they are taking over.
Surely that would be the best option for them
@Shay Flynn: not taking over kbc just buying the loan book arent they
Just pretend you’re buying something and you’ll get a human response pronto. I phoned BOI finance and got a name and number of a Regional Manager and my outstanding issue was resolved. Before that I did a tour of India or somewhere and the employees had no overview or authority to deal with a very small correction to my address . It was small but meant post was going elsewhere. They changed their system very shortly after I pointed out my comedy of errors.
Oh My God ! … I spoke to a real person ! What ? When did this happen ? That’s not supposed to happen ! I will report it immediately ! Some Bot is not functioning correctly .
I don’t think anyone in the comments section here gets it. Banking is changing, everything is going digital. If the legacy Banking system can’t convert they are done. BoI have failed in their attempts to modernize and compete with the new banking paradigm – I’m talking about Revolut etc. – now they need to take a less tentative conservative approach, otherwise they are bust. This is not just about profit margins, it’s about survival.
@mcmonkeys1: I was puzzled by the reference to cheques. Who uses cheques anymore?
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