Why Am I Navigating Unlit Reefs At Night In A Squall With No GPS?

That's the question Conrad Humphreys, sailing master of Bounty’s End in Channel 4’s Mutiny, asked himself as his inexperienced crew put their lives in his hands.

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From the moment we were cast adrift 35 miles southwest of Tofua in Tonga’s Ha’apai archipelago, I could no longer access forecasts. As a sailor, that would mean navigating with a far wider margin for error. Bligh was cast adrift with some of his navigation equipment, including a sextant and a pocket watch. He would not have had any idea of the forecast. In the months before, I studied the weather every day to build up an understanding of its patterns in my head. Bligh had charted many of the islands around Tonga and Fiji during a previous survey, and was able to recall them in his head. I hoped to do the same with weather.

As the rope was cut and we were cast adrift, I knew that, within five days, the weather was due to turn. The trade wind’s southeaster lies that would blow us along at up to five knots would be replaced sooner or later by a strong southwesterly front and what looked likely to be a serious amount of rain.