‘Here comes the squall,” says a voice excitedly. A girl of 11 or 12 clutching the side of the boat looks less thrilled. A squall is the most action you’ll get from this delicate, contemplative, rather eccentric documentary from film-maker Huw Wahl. It’s a love letter to engineless sailing: the art of navigating using only the wind, tides and good old fashioned seamanship. Though, really, that should be seawomanship, since the sailor we see most is Rose Ravetz (the director’s sister) who moors her engineless boat, the Defiance, at Maldon in Essex.
Filmed over three years and shot on 16mm film, there are some gorgeous images here that would give Turner a run for his money, like a milky sky melting into the white sea. It’s a feast for the ears, too, with a soundtrack of waves, creaking wood, the clank of metal and shrieking oystercatchers. Over in Maldon, Ravetz twists yarn to make rope by lamplight. Her musings about the effect of sailing on her anxious tendencies make it sound like meditation: “When you’re in that conversation with nature, it’s not in your head. It’s just feeling and responding without analysing it.”
People have sailed for 6,000 years using the wind and tides, says a sailor from the Dutch company Fairtransport; engines entered the picture 100 years ago. They run the world’s only cargo sailing fleet, an environmentally friendly alternative to heavily polluting cargo ships. We watch the crew of his boat, the Tres Hombres, load up barrels; elsewhere hobbyists take part in a engineless sailing jolly in Norfolk. The film is a gentle audiovisual meditation – though, personally speaking, it crossed the fine line between meditative and sleepy more than once, the lapping waves exerting a gentle pressure on my eyelids. Still, it’s the only film I’ve seen with a cast list of boats rather than people in the credits.
Source: theguardian.com
