Late afternoon and Bounty is aground. She sits high on sand while the ship’s boats gather the anchors and row them to deeper water in a frantic effort to re-float her. There is no other transport home! As the sun sets so does Bounty settle – in the sand. Later Bligh suggests incompetence ... or even sabotage. The painting is as soft as the consequences are brutal. Turner once exclaimed when criticised for the use of black, ‘if I had blacker paint I would paint blacker sails – as black is the colour of death.’