It’s Mutiny on the Bounty
IF TRUTH be told, the modern-day man is often considered a mere shadow of his esteemed ancestors.
But excluding the likes of survivalists Bear Grylls and Ray Mears, would our contemporary menfolk jump at the chance to achieve the same extraordinary feats as their hardened predecessors?
It turns out, yes, they would – or at least in the case of Channel 4’s new series, Mutiny.
Trialling the ageold nautical saying, ‘When ships were made of wood, men were made of steel’, the fact-based series follows a group of nine 21st-century contemporaries who attempt to relive one of the greatest survival feats in naval history.
But how did they fare pitted against a fleet of 18th-century seaman? The tale begins 230 years ago, when British navy ship HMS Bounty was sailing from Tahiti to the West Indies. During its 17-month voyage, a poisonous rift meant Captain William Bligh and his loyal crewmen were cast adrift in the Pacific Ocean and left for dead.
In a remarkable act of seamanship, Bligh – forced into a tiny open boat and left to die – led his crew to safety across 4000 miles of ocean from Tonga to Timor. It would go down in history as the Mutiny on the Bounty.
To replicate the same gruelling journey for the Channel 4 show, nine men would follow the same route on a replica 23ft open wooden boat, with similar equipment, the same food and water rations and the same basic clothing that Bligh’s men had.
They’ll also use the 225-year-old diary kept by Bligh during the voyage as a survival handbook, to help them uncover the secrets of the seas in such unpredictable, often brutal, environments. SAS veteran-turnedTV star Ant Middleton leads the expedition, assuming the role of Captain Bligh.
It’s a role he refers to as “psychologically and leadership-wise, the hardest task I’ve done”.
“In my military career, everyone had been through that process,” explains the 36-year-old, who made his name as the lead instructor of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins.
“Everyone knew how to behave, the discipline was there, the structure was there,” he elaborates. “This was a team of strangers that came together having gone through no process, so for me it was probably my toughest leadership task I’ve had to date, because I had to tailor to each and every one of their needs.”
The rest of the eclectic crew, aged from 23-43, is made up of builder/handyman Ben Gotsell; sailor/adventurer Chris Jacks; professional sailor Conrad Humphreys; skipper Freddy Benjafield; doctor Luke Kane; brand ambas- sador Rishi Ravalia, and embedded cameramen Dan Etheridge and Sam Brown. Staying true to form, Mutiny’s producers cast a crew that would mirror that of Bligh’s – with Gotsell recruited as ship carpenter and odd-jobs man, and Kane taking on the role of surgeon.
Any expertise was put to good use.
“The worst bit was when everyone’s skin basically disintegrated,” recalls Kane, who is in his final year of GP training. “[The] cold, wet period was quite long, and essentially our skin’s outer layer broke down, which let all these bugs come in.
“Everyone was riddled with ulcers and boils,” he continues. “It was really difficult to manage it, because the only way to deal with it was to dry off and we just couldn’t do it,” he explains. “Sam’s hands were the worst, he didn’t have fingerprints for ages.”
Indeed, cameraman Brown recalls: “There was a very 21st-century moment when I came off the boat; my iPhone didn’t recognise me because I had no fingerprints!”