Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World, a movie based upon the Napoleonic War novels by Patrick O'Brian will be released this Friday, 14 November. I was lucky enough to view this film in advance with the Captain of the HMS Rose, Richard Bailey. The HMS Rose stars as the HMS Surprise in this movie and was a sea-fairing vessel for 15 years and likely sailed her final trans-oceanic journey from Newport, RI to San Diego, CA upon my watch as her weather router to her film production destination in 2002.

Granted I have noviced sea-feet and have only read a few of O'Brian's books (it's a 20 novel series), the movie is amazing! If I had one word to sum it up, it would be "seaworthy.”

However, since I've had the pleasure to work with the star's Captain (yes, I said it, the ship is the star and is the only "her" in this film), I thought an inside introduction to this movie would be better suited from a like-minded, sea-fairing, adventurous soul -

Big budget Hollywood movies are made to have broad audience appeal...studio executives' careers rise and fall on the tide of the opening weekend numbers, but if you love sailing and the sea, this film may have a little extra something for you.

This is no Titanic...no boy meets girl, no irrelevant collateral love story, no heart throb---unless you count the very real ship that I had the privilege of commanding for many years. 'HMS' Rose always looked magnificent under sail, but to see her on the giant screen with her mild make-over as HMS Surprise will take your breath away.

And the ocean is real in this film, too. If those giant seas in the Cape Horn scenes look real it's because they are. Peter Weir, the director, sent a camera man around the Horn aboard the bark Endeavour to get them. The special effects people were able to weave numerous individual real waves together into the  background of real ship footage in  such a convincing  way that  the storm scenes just might give the more lubberly of theater-goers a touch of mal de mer.

Is it all the Rose? No, of course not. Many scenes were filmed using the full-scale replica of Rose that was constructed in the Fox Baja tank that also saw the nine-tenths scale recreation of Titanic, but the sailing ship in the tank carried no t'gallant masts (they were deemed too challenging for the hydraulics-induced pitching and rolling motion), so it's a fair bet that when you see above the tops'ls you're seeing the real ship. Miniatures were also used, although that name might be a bit misleading. The model ships built in New Zealand were in the vicinity of thirty feet long...wouldn't that make an interesting new class for buoy racing.

This film is visually complex, it will keep your eyes busy from start to finish. If you know the Patrick O'Brian books upon which it is based, spotting the rich details will keep you wide-eyed. As Peter Weir said at the New York Yacht Club showing of the film last week, "It's easier to make a good film from a bad book." The O'Brian books are brilliant. If you don't know them you should. The New York Times called them "the greatest historical novels ever written" and Bill Buckley said O'Brian was "the most evocative writer on the sea since Homer." The film is not a direct translation of the two books from which it was drawn, yet hardcore O'Brian fans will recognize, they of all audiences can take the most away with them.

If you're not an O'Brian fan yet, don't worry about it. Just know that twenty great books are out there on the horizon waiting for you. But get yourself to this movie, because it's probably the greatest sailing film ever made.

January is no time for a three-masted square-rigged ship to be in the North Atlantic, not 200 hundred years ago, and certainly not two years ago. We needed quality weather information. The crew summed it up nicely, “Have we heard from the weather goddess yet?”

When you sail for your personal Far Side of the World you need the best weather router. We did, you should too.

- Captain Richard Bailey-