With our dark winter days becoming longer and most of the boats being mothballed in their winter storage, for most of us sailors there´s not much to do. Many bridge this boring season of not sailing at all by reading a good book or watching a nice sailing documentary. YouTube is full of those, which is the reason why I covered my favored ones in this section. Yesterday I discovered yet another little gem: “To the Ends of the Earth – the first 40 Years of the Volvo Ocean Race”. This is really worth watching.
You may browse YouTube and watch it for free. This documentary has been released back in 2011 and celebrated nearly half a century of the – for many sailors – toughest and most relevant pro offshore regatta there is. The streaming quality of the documentary is pretty poor, which also explains the not so nice screenshots I utilized for spicing up this article. Nevertheless, it is worth watching because, as the name suggests, it is a great entry and oversight into the VOR-world, the world of fully crewed offshore ocean racing.
What´s this documentary about?
“To the Ends of the World” covers the story of how this race – back then called the Whitbread ´round the World-race – came to life. This is actually a nice little side-story, because it is rumored that it had been invented in a pub. I don´t want to spoil you, but this detail illustrates very nicely how so often a mention, an idea or a flash of wit can culminate in such a great outcome.
The documentary sheds a light not only on the people who brought the project to life, but also on the boats which had been used to race around the world, their crews and the logistical efforts which had been undertaken. From the first, Corinthian and more adventure-driven amateur-sailors to the multi million budgets feasting carbon-monsters of today. It shows how the sport progressed, transformed and became what it is today, the pinnacle of offshore ocean racing.
The most fascinating feats about this film
There are three things which fascinated me the most: First of all, seeing all these legendary faces like Sir Chay Blyth, Sir Robin-Knox Johnston or Magnus Olsson talking about legends like Sir Peter Blake and even Sir Francis Chicester. It´s really a compendium of the who is who of historic and most recent offshore racing. Not a single minute goes by without the introduction of yet another relevant voice of that era, including Simon LeBon.
Secondly, I loved to see how the style of sailing and racing around the world slowly changes. At first it was those specially equipped private vessels, merely ordinary cruising yachts, more or less readied to tackle the infamous hardships and battering of the Southern Ocean. Transforming into purpose-built aluminum racing yachts, peaking in the impressively huge Volvo Maxis.
And last not least, it´s also absolutely fantastic to witness how sailing itself became more and more professional and different over the years. Where during the first editions of the Whitbread the boat´s navigators relied on sextants and printed charts to find their ways, slowly but surely more and more technology and ultimately satellite-based information transfer and internet also had their huge impacts. At some point, one of the guys tells the story how they decided not to take down the kite during the nights in order to maintain their 25 knots of SOG – unthinkable in growler-infested areas just a few years earlier!
Why you should watch “To the Ends of the Earth”
The documentary lasts little more than 50 minutes. It´s fast paced and nicely edited. If you just start to investigate in offshore sailing and regatta racing, this documentary is a great base to build your knowledge upon. The poor quality of the YouTube-upload is be excused for the fact that this little sailing gem can be enjoyed free of charge.
As a German I especially loved the chapter about the famous ILLBRUCK win back in 2002, it´s always very moving to see this apple-green yacht ploughing through the seas. Which, by the way, is another nice feat of this documentary: It features the most impressive, most gripping and most hair raising events, race results and also tragic parts, like men lost overboard, in chronological order.
Now, just click on the YouTube-Link and enjoy this nice sailing documentary. Pour yourself a nice cold pint of good old Whitbread beer or, probably better suiting the current weather, a nice hot cup of tea. And indulge yourself into a rollercoaster ride into the not so far away history of the toughest and most exciting offshore regatta of our planet.
My overall rating of this sailing documentary is 9 of 10 points
You might as well be interested in these related articles:
Aboard the one and only German VOR-winner, legendary ILLBRUCK
Another fascinating documentary: “The Weekend Sailor”, watch it!
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