Bounty’s skipper has harrowing sojourn

Press, 3 November 1984, Page 7

Bounty’s skipper has harrowing sojourn

By HUGH NEVILL NZPA staff correspondent Washington "Mac” McGuire is recruiting a crew and will sail the ?6 million replica of the Whangarei-built Bounty to San Diego in early December after a harrowing six months near Los Angeles. The ship was built for the film, “The Bounty,” shot in New 'Zealand and Tahiti, which will open in New Zealand on December 15. Commander- McGuire, whose Christian name is Joseph but is universally known as Mac, is ex-Royal Navy, ex-Merchant Navy and ex-senior Lloyd’s surveyor in Auckland, and a Briton turned New Zealander. He supervised the building of the 400-ton wooden sailing ship, then sailed her to the United States with a crew of 22, 80 per cent of them New Zealanders. They arrived at Long Beach, near Los Angeles, on April 27, a day before the anniversay of the famous mutiny in 1789. The ship was there to publicise the film and on July 4 sailed in the Independence Day tall ships parade, the New Zealand flag flying from the topmast Most of the crew left soon after the Bounty arrived at Long Beach, and McGuire opened the ship up to visitors, charging $1 for adults and 50c for children to help defray berthage charges of $4lOO a month. On August 6 MGuire told NZPA, 30 armed men carrying handcuffs burst on board to arrest him and his three remaining crewmen — Peter Kane, Anthony Crowder, and Chris Janini, all New Zealanders.

“I said “Take heart’,” he reminisced. ‘lt takes 30 armed men to subdue one Englishman and three New Zealanders and we’re not even mad yet’.” The handcuffs were not used.

“Put those things away,” he told the customs agents. “We are not that sort of people.” The agents also brought a sniffer dog on board, but the Bounty was clean, “and always will be.” It was, he said, “a totally unnecessary show of force.”

McGuire and his companions were arrested by the agents for allegedly bringing the ship to sell in the United States without paying appropriate duty.

He said that that was not the case, although it had always been understood that the owner, the Dino di Laurentis Corporation, would consider offers. They were also charged with failing to report entry to the United States. They had done that at Honolulu, and had not realised it had to be done at every port. - A third charge, entering

into the commerce of the United States without paying customs duty, was so obscure that it baffled both him and his lawyers. It related to the fact that they had been charging visitors a fee to tour the ship. The upshot was that the Bounty was seized and held for 65 days, much of the time impounded at the Long Beach Naval Base, where McGuire could go on board only under guard. On October 10, the charges relating to bringing the ship in with the intention of selling her and of engaging in commerce were dropped abruptly, without explanation. They eventually made friends with the customs officers in the field. The problem was the “faceless automatons at the desks.” Mr McGuire and his crew also discovered that the seamen’s visas they had been issued by the United States Consulate in Auckland were incorrect.

They went to nearby Tijuana, just over the Mexican border, to get the correct

visas, but have now been warned that they were liable to be arrested for that procedure, though a lawyer assured him there should be no problem. “I feel it has been an orchestrated attack,” Commander McGuire said from on board the Bounty at Fish Harbour in San Pedro, near Long Beach, where she has been moored for some time. He said he suspected the telephone might be tapped. “We have been investigated by the Coast Guard, customs, Treasury, the Long Beach Marine Bureau (for allegedly polluting the harbour, a charge that McGuire said was found to be baseless), and immigration. “It is beyond coincidence. It has almost taken on sinister overtones of harassment.”

Mr Mcuire said he wanted to sail to San Diego to get away from the pollution at Long Beach that was damaging the sails and hull, and also to get away from the “political pollution.” He would explore the possibilities of opening the

Bounty up to visitors there, “but with the utmost caution — I do not want to break any law or regulation.”

He was also looking at scripts produced by Australia’s A.B.C. television network for a possible film about Captain Cook. “The Bounty,” which opened simultaneously in 1200 cinemas in the United States, had not done well because it was a movie that made people think, he said. It was well received in France, Britain, Tahiti, and Hong Kong and had a mixed reception at the Cannes Film Festival.