Adrift, the movie

[FranklinGray]

I haven't read the book or saw the movie. Does either one explain why they decided to sail right through a hurricane zone in mid-season?

Interesting that historical data ((https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/) does not have the winds at 140 knots and it doesn't have it constantly changing directions chasing them. The one change 2 days before is slightly northernly which is to be expected. It also points out that the storm is about 10 degrees lat. i would expect any sailor to know to go south if a storm is approaching and you are that far south. Storms rarely go farther south than 9 and when they do go south they get weaker.

[Southernsky]

Originally Posted by FranklinGray

I haven't read the book or saw the movie. Does either one explain why they decided to sail right through a hurricane zone in mid-season?

Interesting that historical data ((https://coast.noaa.gov/hurricanes/) does not have the winds at 140 knots and it doesn't have it constantly changing directions chasing them. The one change 2 days before is slightly northernly which is to be expected. It also points out that the storm is about 10 degrees lat. i would expect any sailor to know to go south if a storm is approaching and you are that far south. Storms rarely go farther south than 9 and when they do go south they get weaker.

In the movie the people who are paying them to deliver the boat to San Diego are in a hurry for it to go... they don't really explain why.

[tedowens]

I saw the movie and thought it was great. Sure there are some scenes that seem to be dramatized for the sake of making a movie. Is anyone surprised at that? I have seen lots of sailing movies and this one moved me more than any other. Perhaps it is because I too live on a boat with my wife and do offshore passages. We have debated whether extra crew is always needed and this helped me to internalize how terrible it would be to leave your spouse alone on a damaged boat very far away from help. It also makes me very much appreciate all the advances in sailing, weather prediction, and safety gear that have happened in the last 30 years. Oh, and I think I will get that satellite phone before the next big passage.

[CarinaPDX]

I appreciate the reviews. After seeing the trailer I thought this was another All is Lost or Dead Calm, two movies that were laughably bad in terms of portraying cruising. Well, laughing once the anger of having been served such rubbish had passed. It seems Hollywood can't resist "re-imagining" stories that are great just as they are (Titanic anyone?). Anyway, as a result of this thread I will give it a go - and hope I will be glad I went.


Greg

[Yellowbay]

saw the movie adrift
The scene jumping back and forth is a style you either like or not. It didn’t bother me and was obvious from the start. It was sort of documentary days on a highly damaged boat. Her sailing experience was only about six months , with dockside work also. She was a resourceful and brave person. I hope to read the book and see what truths are presented there. She lives in the north west US , has two kids and continues to sail( film statement). I hope to meet her. The movie caused me to look into how to use a sextant. Still looking. I enjoyed it and yet some of the directorial and script choices left me unsatisfactorily pleased.

[Cyrus Safdari]

Not a single PFD worn or handheld VHF radio on-board, according to the movie

[rbyham]

Saw it the other night an had an enjoyable experience. Sailing stuff was accurate enough if not perfect. Acting was excellent. And all around a truly remarkable and true story... Redford should be forced to watch it over and over to see how to make a sailing movie. :-)

[rbyham]

I should add that after a while I found the flashback technique very helpful. Like the boredom I feel any more watching youtube sailing movies, too much extended sailing footage is frankly boring. But they broke up the sailing footage with flashback to life event stuff. Well done...

[CarinaPDX]

Originally Posted by Cyrus Safdari

Not a single PFD worn or handheld VHF radio on-board, according to the movie

I think that actually may be accurate. In those days we had bulky PFDs or harnesses which could not be worn together, but not the harnesses with inflatable PFDs incorporated we have today. Even in the '90s, until I found the money to buy the harness/PFD, I only wore a harness under way. After all, being separated from the boat on passage is usually fatal, and PFDs won't get you back aboard (in fact the old foam or kapok ones made it much more difficult). Now if they weren't shown wearing harnesses and tethers it would be different, but many folks didn't and probably don't even now.

Similarly, handheld radios that could synthesize many channels were new, and very expensive - very few cruisers had them at that time.

Easy to forget how far we have come...

Greg

[Captain Parry]

saw the movie. nice story. nice filming but lots of flaws in common sense .

[anchorman]

NO disrespect to Tami, but I am familiar with the book "Adrift" by Steve Calahan.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by anchorman

NO disrespect to Tami, but I am familiar with the book "Adrift" by Steve Calahan.

The original book the movie was based on is Red Sky in Mourning.

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Sky-Mourn...11R619G8J3697Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0Ecx5MA6P8

Callahan's book is very good also.

[Neptune's Gear]

Originally Posted by PatrickG

Hi Neptune, interesting! I watched the movie yesterday and generally enjoyed it. The whole love story was reasonably well-done and the characters were good. Must have been fun! As a currently land-based former ocean sailor, I was even willing to suffer through the inevitable "if you go to sea you will die in a terrible storm" Hollywood trope for some sweet shots of life on the water. But as always whenever watching any sailing movie, was also thinking "When it costs as much as it does to make a movie like this, why can Hollywood never pay a few thousand for some decent advice on sailing?"



Just some examples (assuming none of these are down to your input but a director who just wouldn't listen



- In the early scene where Richard motors into the harbor on Tahiti he passes a boat smack in the foreground from the 90s at the earliest.



- When they're out in Tahiti with two boats having a nice daysail, both boats' leeches are flapping like crazy. Admittedly not the biggest point, but it makes them look silly at a moment when we're supposed to be believing in their skills (especially Richard's but we're supposed to be learning that Tami's got skillz too).



- At no point when discussing with the boat's owners about the delivery does the subject of weather or season come up. It's just "You want us to go to San Diego, yeah, ok." On the one hand you could say the director wanted to keep it simple for a non-technical audience. But on the other this seemed like a lost storytelling opportunity - a missed chance to foreshadow. I mean, really? No: "Oh ****, that's getting pretty late into hurricane season, I don't know..." The season and the weather would be the very first topic of discussion in that setting - even to dismiss it as "Yeah, we've got at least four months of good weather ahead so we should be just fine."



- They're on a ketch and sail straight into the storm with main and mizzen up on maybe second reef, and no foresail. "Oh my god, we need to get some sail down!" What ketch sailor would ever have that configuration? She would be completely unbalanced. If they wanted to heave to, mizzen alone could be an option, but they don't seem to be doing that. And no mention of a storm headsail or trysail. At this point I was slapping myself in the face and at the same time saying "what do you expect? Hollywood+sailing." Again, all this could seem pedantic, but as a sailor it's hard not to lose the pathos especially for Richard. Which is too bad because otherwise it's a nice-ish story and with just a few incredibly inexpensive changes that stuff could have been fixed too.



- Richard also seems to have absolutely no storm strategy. I mean, even for that time: trailing warps, or even dumping some oil on the water or whatever. He doesn't seem to have heard of heaving to. I suppose in those days that lying ahull was also common, but doesn't seem to have been contemplated either. There's some mention of turning presumably to run off, but good luck trying that with the current sail plan guys. In the meantime, Richard just just grips the wheel like a deer in the headlights, which, see pathos above.



- One of my favorite laughs in the movie is when, at sea in the Pacific, Richard listens to a weather report (aka "exposition" aka "storm clouds on the horizon dear character") and the report is directed to "sailors in the Pacific". I mean, it's a report for basically the entire ocean, and the message is "watch out guys, a storm is headed your way!" Facepalm. Again, why treat the audience like idiots? Take the time to make it understandable AND technically accurate and the same scene would be so much stronger and not make Richard look like a dip.



- There were more things during the post-disaster aftermath, but fair enough to chalk those up to "who knows what one would really do when exhausted and terrified and drifting in the middle of the Pacific." The real life Tami obviously did a brilliant job and well done to her for surviving.



- But then comes the very end: uplifting flashback to anchoring in Tahiti. And here comes Tami to lift their anchor from the bottom -- where it lies perfectly peacefully in the sand, though it needs to be dug in -- and carries it over to hook it on a bommie and I'm like, "yeah, perfect. I deserve this: I bought the ticket after all." Laughs

Agreed. No discussion with the actual sailors involved in the movie about anything to do with sailing realities. Still, it paid the bills for a few months!

[PatrickG]

Originally Posted by Neptune's Gear

Agreed. No discussion with the actual sailors involved in the movie about anything to do with sailing realities. Still, it paid the bills for a few months!

Thanks for the message back! Good on ya for the work you put in, and here's hoping the next director bothers to listen a little Happy sailing in the meantime!

[Fore and Aft]

I took the wife yesterday to see the movie. We both thought it was very good and not to much hollywood ********. The characters were believeable and there was some good sailing footage.
Tina is already calling it Drews ultimate fantasy movie, just becuase there was a good looking blonde in it. Funny thing is that was what Tina looked like in her 20's when we were bumming around on sailboats.
Cheers