Aust, company buys replica of Bounty

Press, 29 January 1986, Page 23

Aust, company buys replica of Bounty

NZPA-AAP Sydney An Australian company is buying a sAust2.3 million ($3.1 million) replica of the sailing ship Bounty, to sail in the reenactment of the first convict fleet voyage to the shores of Sydney. Bounty Voyages Pty, Ltd, a firm set up by a Sydney travel entrepreneur, Ken Rosebery, is buying the 40metre ship from an American film-maker, Dino de Laurentiis. Mr Rosebery’s company takes delivery of the ship in mid-April. She will sail to Australia via Mexico and Tahiti, being used as a prop in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation television series on Captain Cook on the way. The ship is expected to arrive in Sydney in December. Mr Rosebery plans to use the ship in films and on tours to cover the cost of the purchase. In May, 1987, she will join the 11-ship fleet making the eight-month journey to Australia marking the first convict voyage.

The Bounty — the original of which was a sister ship of a convict vessel the Sirius — will lead the fleet into Sydney on January 26, 1988. The Bounty replica was built in Whangarei, in the north of New Zealand, in 1978. Dino de Laurentiis commissioned her for a film, the “Bounty,” which screened in 1984. Mr Rosebery said the ship had been idle at Long Beach, California, since the film. He said berths were available on the Bounty on the six-stop re-enact-ment, at prices ranging from sAustlBso ($2497) to sAust4B,ooo ($64,800) for different legs.