Based on a true story
When their yacht capsizes during a storm; four men face almost certain death trapping them in a small space within one of the hulls for 119 days.
The crew, relative strangers to each other, set out from New Zealand bound for Tonga on the trimaran, Rose-Noelle. Its captain, John Glennie, a shrewd old salt, doesnt let on that a storm is coming. He intends to use it to rack up the miles. But the weather becomes much worse than expected and in the middle of the night, after hours of terror, Rose-Noelle is flipped upside down by a giant wave. The yacht fills with water and the crew are trapped in an air pocket with only eighteen inches of headroom in an area the size of a double bed.
Over the subsequent days, all their efforts to attract rescue fail. They are drifting and have lost all sense of their whereabouts. Fear turns to despair. Even as they fight to master their physical environment, other more personal challenges rise to meet them. Growing tension in their relationships becomes as much a threat to their survival as hunger or thirst. Together and separately they must learn to confront their dependencies upon one another and their conflicts.
Glennie loses his macho authority; the panicky Phil Hoffman, a heart patient, grows more confident; and a deep bond develops between Jim Nalepka an itinerant American and Rick Hellriegel, a dynamic young man with a brain tumour.
As the men struggle to work as a team in their quest to survive, need creates the genius of invention; cramped together in the tiny space, they cut a hole to climb out on the hull in good weather; catch fish, rig a rain-collection device and devise a way to cook hot meals. They even experiment with menus and begin to enjoy life in their upside down world.
Finally after 119 days adrift, the yacht and her hapless crew are smashed against the rocky shoreline of New Zealands Great Barrier Island. But their miraculous survival is only the beginning of a new nightmare.....
Cast: Greg Johnson, Peter Feeney, Owen Black, Dominic Purcell.
Winner 2017 NZOnAir Best Television Feature
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