Nonot just for free spirits, but for anyone believe in dreams: that’s who it’s for True Spirit, a film based on a true story available today on Netflix. The biopic tells the life of Jessica Watsona 16-year-old Australian with a passion for sailing around the world on a solo sailing boat – conquering the supremacy of youngest ever to do it. A sporting challenge against the fear that everyone considered impossible.
Playing Jessica is the Australian Teagan Croftprotagonist of this adventurous movie together with Josh Lawson And Anna PaquinOscar as a supporting role at only 11 years old for the role of Flora in Piano lessons (1993).
True Spiritthe plot
Jessica is 11 when she reads Lionheart: A Journey of the Human Spiritbook that tells the adventure of Jesse Martinboy who holds the title of youngest to have sailed around the world alone (he was 18 when he succeeded). She falls in love with the story and she, already passionate about sailing, decides she must “stealing” Jesse’s primacy. So she stubbornly wants to go around the world on a sailing boat alone in just 210 rounds before the age of 18.
He trains hard. To support it are above all the parents (played by Josh Lawson and Anna Paquin). And also the coach and mentor Ben Bryant (Cliff Curtis). The feat is not only difficult in itself, but in Jessica’s case it seems impossible. The girl must overcome her fears, the fear of being alone, lost in the middle of the ocean, for seven long months. It must also overcome the technical difficulties. During a sea trial rams a cargo ship of 63 thousand tons. Jessica loses her mast and manages to return to port thanks to the emergency engine.
Everyone is convinced that he will never succeed in the enterprise. But she, with determination, obstinacy, willpower and lots and lots of effort, continues to work hard.
True Spirit: thus the impossible becomes reality
Jessica embarks in 2010 aboard the 24-foot Pink. cross thePacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans, traveling the most dangerous and hostile routes alone, without assistance, without intermediate stops. Face gale-force winds, monstrous waves, icebergs and the utter solitude of being surrounded only by water.
On May 15, 2010 he returns home. He made it. She feels (and is considered) a kind of heroine. With stubbornness and courage she has proven to the world (and before that to herself) that she is capable of overcoming the greatest obstacles that nature can present. And especially, proved that nothing is really impossible. Dreams can come true.
But the primacy is not recognized
Jessica has succeeded, yes, in achieving her feat. But the record of being the youngest to go around the world on a sailing boat solo it was never officially recognized.
To obtain it, in fact, the regulation provides that 21,600 nautical miles have to be covered. Between tacks and strategic detours made due to the weather, she calculates that she made about 22,000. Instead, the commission of the World Sailing Speed Record Councilwhich assigns the primates, it recognized only 19,631.6 of them.
An endless dispute arises. An angry Jessica says, “If I haven’t sailed around the world, let me know what I’ve been doing away from here all this time!”
The documentary, the book and now the film
The feat has been told in different ways. Footage taken by the real Jessica during her journey has become a documentary: 210 Days: Around the World with Jessica Watson. The girl then decides to tell her adventure in a book: True Spirit. Which becomes an international success.
In 2011 Jessica is nominated Young Australian 2011. He continues to compete in regattas and becomes a spokesperson for humanitarian campaigns (Laos, Jordan, Lebanon).
Now the director and screenwriter Sarah Spillane and the producers Andrew Fraser, Debra Martin Chase, Susan Cartsonis they also award the dignity of a film to the extraordinary feat of the girl.
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