Lieutenant Bligh,of His Majesty"s Armed Vessel,"Bounty",was,I think ,trying to get to his destination,(The Friendly Islands ?) by the shortest route,but shortest wasn"t necessarily fastest in those days ,for the technical reasons explained already by Schantieman !! Bligh obstinately stuck to his plan until forced to admit defeat trying to "round" the Horn,after many,many,days of,basically,hazarding his ship.The ship would have inevitably sustained damage,was bound to have "Sprung" and been taking in water,so Bligh was forced to go about and head East.He eventually reached his destination after a very long voyage,which probably did little to help the morale of the crew, not that he or anyone else gave a stuff about that sort of thing in those days !!What happened after that ??Well, there was a mutiny,Bligh & some of the crew were set adrift in a longboat,they reached Batavia(Dutch East Indies ) after history-making,epic,voyage, Bligh got a slap on the wrist for losing his ship,made Admiral and became Governor of New South Wales,or somewhere like that,in Australia !! The Bastard !!