Hurricane Sandy: Two missing from tall ship as east coast of America battens down the hatches TWO people from a tall ship caught up in Hurricane Sandy in the United States are missing after the crew was forced to abandon it amid fierce winds and high seas. Hurricane Sandy heading towards eastern seaboard of US Two people missing from tall ship Transatlantic flight cancellations hit tourists US Coast Guard helicopters rescued 14 others from lifeboats launched after HMS Bounty ran into trouble off North Carolina. The search is continuing for the remaining two. The director of the HMS Bounty Organisation, Tracie Simonin, said the ship left Connecticut last week for Florida. She said the crew had been in constant contact with the National Hurricane Centre and tried to go around the storm. The ship is a replica of the one made famous in the 1960 film "Mutiny on the Bounty," and it was used in that film. It was also used in the film "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." The East Coast of America was battening down the hatches today as Hurricane Sandy threatened millions of people amid fears it would bring an 11ft (3.4m) storm surge to New York. High winds and power outages threatened cities along the coast as the superstorm - predicted to hit land at around 7pm local time - bore down on the US. Flights Thousands of Britons had their American travel plans wrecked, with flights axed by British Airways as well as Virgin Atlantic. Vincent McAviney, 24, from London, was due to be travelling to Washington but his flight was cancelled. "I was meant to be flying to DC this morning at 11 for a holiday but last night I checked my flight status at 7.30 and it was listed as cancelled," he said. I called them again this morning when the lines opened. I managed to get through after being on hold for 25 minutes so I rearranged for the first available flight, which is Thursday. Looking at the pictures and the forecasts it seems like a fair enough decision. I'm obviously disappointed that my holiday has been shortened but it's nature, so there's not much we can do about it.