Pitcairn Islands - " SHIPS ~ ROMANTIC BOUNTY."

MNH ~ Miniature Sheet !

When Her Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty left England in 1787, no one could possibly believe the incredible interest her story would generate for the following 225 years. Followers of the Bounty and the subsequent habitation of Pitcairn have carried out a “romance” with this amazing story.

Life for the Bounty began as a coastal trader named Bethia, which underwent a refit for a voyage to collect breadfruit seedlings to deliver to the West Indies. The Bethia was a three-masted, fully-rigged, snub-nosed ship of only 215 tons. On the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks, she was renamed Bounty. Under her new look and new name, Her Majesty’s Armed Vessel set sail with a complement of 46 officers and crew led by Lieutenant William Bligh.  After an arduous voyage the Bounty finally reached Tahiti on October 26th, 1788.

The crew was glad for the respite on the tropical island, collecting and growing a thousand breadfruit plants. Bligh allowed the crew to live ashore where they became familiar with the customs and culture, and the lovely Tahitian women. During the five months many of the crew formed a deep attachment to the island and the fine-looking inhabitants, leading Fletcher Christian to marry one of them, a Tahitian beauty named Maimiti.

As Bligh recorded in the captain’s log:

The Women are handsome ... and have sufficient delicacy to make them admired and beloved. The chiefs have taken such a liking to our People that they have rather encouraged their stay among them than otherwise, and even made promises of large possessions. Under these and many other attendant circumstances equally desirable it is therefore now not to be Wondered at ... that a Set of Sailors led by Officers and void of connections ... should be governed by such powerful inducement ... to fix themselves in the midst of plenty in the finest Island in the World where they need not labour, and where the alurements of disipation are more than equal to anything that can be conceived.

The two replicas sailing today are possibly the most-photographed of the tall ships. The USA Bounty replica was built in 1960 for MGM studios' Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando. Since then, she has starred in several feature-length films,TV shows and historical documentaries. The studios commissioned the ship to be built using the original ship's drawings from the British admiralty archives. After filming and a worldwide promotional tour, MGM berthed the ship in St. Petersburg as a permanent tourist attraction. In 1986 Ted Turner acquired the MGM film library and the Bounty with it.

He 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 of 2001 the H.M.S. Bounty was purchased from the Foundation by the HMS Bounty Organisation LLC.

The second Bounty is based in Hong Kong for tourism purposes and was built in 1978/9 for the movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" starring Mel Gibson, and Anthony Hopkins at a cost of US$5M. She is a fully rigged 3-masted tall ship with an overall length of 42 metres and a displacement of 400 tonnes. The great timber masts, 35 metres in height, carry 18km of rope and she carries up to 19 sails, giving her an impressive 900 sq. metres of canvas.

This stamp issue captures some of those images that are at the heart of the Bounty saga.

Year: 2012.

(PF13) ~ Psg Cpd Tp.