One of the posters on the Wooden Boats forum referenced by Charlie made a telling point when he noted that where the ship foundered, they were in 40 to 50-knot northerly winds blowing directly against the Gulf Stream current. This situation can easily produce steep, breaking waves of up to 40 feet which would have caused the ship to work heavily.

All wooden ships leak to some extent and apparently the Bounty was a particularly wet ship. Other posters with experience in sailing aboard her say that they had to check the water level and run the pumps every quarter of an hour. In a heavy storm like Sandy, it would take one minor mishap, such as a generator shorting out, to inactivate the bilge pumps, after which it was only a matter of time.

But I do agree that criticism of the actions of the captain seems well founded. He took a 40-year old wooden vessel with lots of top-hamper out into a well-forecast hurricane with a small and somewhat inexperienced crew, surely a recipe for disaster.

Someone else on the forum pointed out that even if they were under time pressure to get to Florida, delaying the departure for two days would have allowed them to complete the voyage within their deadline and in comparative safety. A lot more to come on this, I expect!