https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyPMrR2XR6o
Sailing movies are hard to produce, difficult to write, and often bomb at the box office. One weird exception is “What About Bob?” a black comedy from 1991 starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss. Murray is his usual cultish self, as honed in “Ground Hog Day.” He is one-dimensional, boorish and unfunny. He plays a psychiatric patient who trolls his psychiatrist (Dreyfuss) who is just trying to enjoy his family vacation.
When Bob goes sailing, he somehow lashed himself to the mast with coils of line while wearing a life preserver. This is quintessential Bill Murray—stupid, rambling, bumbling. Yet the film did well at the box office and Bravo ranks it 43rd among the 100 Funniest Movies if not sailing movies.
“What about Bob? I’m sailing?” is a frequent question on the internet. Storybase.com connects writers, bloggers and agencies with relevant content based on complex data the site has mined. In this case, the question “What about Bob? I’m sailing” ranks second among 236 related questions for the word “sailing” asked 48,600 times during a recent year.
Various web page rank hundreds of sailing movies going back to the 1930s. Captains Courageous (1937) tells the story on a spoiled rich kid on a fishing schooner who learns his lesson. Dead Calm is a thriller starring Nicole Kidman. It was filmed almost entirely at sea and accurately portrays the difficulty of navigating under terrible conditions.
Wind recounts the America’s Cup race with real 12-meter boats. The story conflates discrete events and scenes of Dennis Conners’ loss of the cup to Australia and the eventual recapture of the cup. It’s a love story of romance, engineering and sailing. Yet it bombed at the box office. Bios of Jennifer Grey or Matthew Modine rarely cite the movie. Captain Ron is a hilarious comedy starring Kurt Russell and Martin Short, with competent sailing scenes. All Is Lost features Robert Redford as a single-handed sailor crossing the Indian Ocean until he holes the boat on a partially submerged container box. He does a lot of things wrong but earnestly shaves every morning.
Grim Sailing Movies
The Mercy is the sad story of a fellow who joined a round-the-world solo race and ended tragically. His story helped shorten the Whitbread Race (now Volvo) to 9 legs instead of non-stop. Maiden recalls the first and only all-women team in the 1989 Whitbread. The men and the media patronized the women endlessly as helpless, well, maidens. The footage of storms at sea is vivid. White Squall, starring Jeff Bridges, ranks as among the best sailing movies for its excellent story as well as breath-taking sailing. Anyone who’s ever sailed in a knockdown from a weather front will be mesmerized when the white squall hits the Albatross and eventually takes her down. This is the most realistic movie I have ever seen in terms of getting slammed by a wind shear. The movie theme by Sting is called Valparaiso, which nicely epitomizes the theme.
Over the sea
Home where my true love is waiting for me
Rope the south wind
Canvas the stars
Harness the moonlight
So she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso
Red the port light
Starboard the green
How will she know of the devils I’ve seen
Cross in the sky star of the sea
Under the moonlight there she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso
And every road I walked would take me down to the sea
With every broken promise in my sack
And every love would always send the ship of my heart
Over the rolling sea
If I should die
And water’s my grave
She’ll never know if I’m damned or I’m saved
See the ghost fly over the sea
Under the moonlight, there she can safely go
Round the Cape Horn to Valparaiso
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Gordon Sumner
Valparaiso lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
More Sailing Movies
A couple from western Canada and a mother and daughter from Texas went sailing for the first time and did very well in an outdoor adventure off Yorktown. JoLynn Bragg and her daughter Shelly Malatek wound up their vacation to Williamsburg by sailing the York River on a warm, sunny day with fluctuating breezes.
Eventually the conversation turned to boating experiences and eventually sailing movies. JoLynn recalled “Open Water 2: Adrift,” based on a true story. The critics panned it, but I liked it for posing a dilemma. Three couples dive off their sailboat to swim and can’t get back on. To complicate matters, they left an infant alone in the cabin.
Cathie Love recalled another true story movie of a couple left behind on an island in Australia, and died. Shelly recalled the true story (not yet a movie) of the NFL player implicated in a boating accident in in which at least one person died. Then she brought up the case of two boys fishing offshore in Florida who made it back after a harrowing storm. That won’t make any top sailing movies.
Farther north, JoLynn liked The Perfect Storm. It focuses on the Gloucester MA fishermen lost at sea 1,000 miles off the coast. I pointed out the folly of George Clooney trying to repair the wheelhouse window with a 4-by-8 piece of plywood in a howling n’oreaster.
Shelly also liked “The Finest Hours,” a true movie about the US Coast Guard sea rescue service. “Who was that guy?” she asked. I looked it up: Casey Affleck. “What About Bob? I’m Sailing” can’t touch that.
Gilligan’s Island
Finally we come to not a movie but the television series Gilligan’s Island. It played for two long seasons that today would comprise three short seasons. It played in the 1960s when I was growing up, but I didn’t pay any attention to it.
The imagery of a three-hour romantic adventure cruise gone haywire remains fixed in the American psyche because they got caught in a storm and got stranded on an island, seemingly in perpetuity. “What About Bob? I’m Sailing” is an inherent stupid title, but so is “Gilligan’s Island.” Viewers had to suspend their disbelief about how all the guest stars managed to reach the island. Like Gilligan, Let’s Go Sail goes out for a three-hour cruise, but with better results.
The very idea that we offer a three-hour cruise resonates with people because the song is still looping in their heads after all these years.
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port, aboard this tiny ship
The mate was a mighty sailing man, the skipper brave and sure
Five passengers set sail that day, on a three-hour tour
A three-hour tour
The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed
If not for the courage of the fearless crew the Minnow would be lost
The Minnow would be lost
The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle
With Gilligan, the Skipper too
The millionaire and his wife
The movie star, Professor and Mary Ann
Here on Gilligan’s Isle
So this is the tale of our castaways, they’re here for a long, long time
They’ll have to make the best of things, and it’s an uphill climb
The first mate and his skipper too will do their very best
To make the others comfortable, in the tropic island nest
No phones, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury
Like Robinson Crusoe, it’s primitive as can be
So join us here each week my friend, you’re sure to get a smile
From seven stranded Castaways, here on Gilligan’s Isle
Yeah it’s Gilligan, the Skipper too
The millionaire and his wife
The movie star, professor and Mary Ann
Here on Gilligan’s Isle
Source: LyricFind. Songwriters: George Wyle / Sherwood Schwartz. Gilligan’s Island Theme lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Let’s Go Sail, without Bob
Check rates and pick a day for a sailboat charter. See reviews on Trip Advisor.
