Buffalo, NY (WKBW) - A tall sailing ship that has docked at dozens of harbors across the country, including Western New York, is now lost at sea.
The famous ship, the HMS Bounty, has fallen victim to the wrath of Sandy.
Monday, Hurricane Sandy sunk the HMS Bounty, just after its crew abandoned ship.
The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 of its crew members, later finding a 15th person dead. Captain Robin Walbridge is the only one still missing.
The HMS Bounty is no stranger is Western New York. Eyewitness News saw the HMS first hand in 2004 at the Outer Harbor for the Water Sport Expo.
The Bounty came in 1986, then 1997 in Lewiston -- where locals got to tour the boat first hand.
It also toured the Great Lakes in 2010 -- going to Rochester, Cleveland and Erie, Pennsylvania.
U.S. Coast Guard Captain Steve Wischmann, of the Buffalo Sector, calls the ship a "living museum."
The vessel had been built to model the original 1812 HMS Bounty -- a historic British ship.
"It's significance is really of historical value," Wischmann says. "it's a chance for us to see ships of that nature and that type from that time period. In that way it was uniquely valuable."
That historical significance is now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Bounty, originally built for the movie "Mutiny on the Bounty" was also featured in "Pirates of the Caribbean."
However, the bigger concern -- where is Robin Walbridge -- the Captain of the HMS Bounty since 1995.
Walbridge originally wrote on Facebook that it's safer at sea.
Captain Steve Wischmann says that's often true, because "Being in port can be an incredibly damaging very violent experience in boats, as we now know from footage coming from the mid-Atlantic and Sandy's impacts."
However, the weather turned for the worse. Walbridge wrote the generator died and the bounty was flooding.
His final message to loved ones: it was time to abandon ship.
