SIGNAL FROM THE BOUNTY

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29378, 3 December 1960, Page 16

SIGNAL FROM THE BOUNTY

Radio Operator Startled (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec., 2. To pick up calls from unknown ships on the high seas is routine for radio operators, but a Wellington radio operator was startled by a call sign he heard early on Wednesday morning.

It was from H.M.S. Bounty. Ships carrying a radio officer are bound by international regulations to advise their nearest radio coast station of their movements.

Operators in the three New Zealand Post Office coast stations receive many of these “RT” messages, as they are called. They give the vessel’s name, call sign, port of departure, port of destination, and sometimes the duration and nature of the voyage—an island cruise for instance.

The signal picked up at Wellington radio on Wednesday morning began: “H.M.S. Bounty, cal sign VYMF.” The caller added that the ship had sailed from Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, via the Panama Canal, for Tahiti, and was a full, square-rigged ship.

Then came the explanation. The ship, a replica of the original H.M.S. Bounty, is on her way to Tahiti to feature in a new filming of the famous story. As the call ended a radio operator was left speculating how different that famous story might have been if Captain Bligh, on the original Bounty, had had a radio installation on his ship.