Morning Light

I have been around sailboats my whole life. Growing up in "the ocean state", learning to sail was mandatory in my family. I saw it as a pleasant past time, and dipped my toe in the racing world a little when I was young. As an adult, I had the privilege of crewing on an Etchells (one-design race boat) in Newport for about 5 seasons. I learned a lot about the world of competitive sailboat racing. There were lessons from our races, and lessons from the conversations at cocktail parties. I met some very interesting people, and heard a lot of great stories.

When I first heard of the film Morning Light, I was impressed that Disney would choose this sport for the subject of a feature film. Then I learned of Roy Disney's love of sailing, and experience with ocean racing, and it all made sense. Disney recruited 15 young people to sail the 52 foot, high performance, ocean racer (TP52), Morning Light, in the TRANSPAC. He's done it himself. It's a sailboat race from Los Angeles, CA to Diamond Head, Hawaii. Yeah, that's 2500 miles (it takes 6-10 days, depends on the wind). For the non-sailor, Morning Light is a human drama. People who revel in the accomplishments of bright, young people will enjoy this. For those in the sailing world, this is a racing drama. Go north? Go south? Where's the wind? Where's the competition? They had some pretty cool technology. I liked all the training they went through before the race. This film is worth a look.

Stay through the credits, a few of the guys on the team are also musicians. They wrote and performed the closing song. BTW many of the team members have RI connections. Remember, it's the "ocean state".