William F. Buckley Jr.'s Celestial Navigation Simplified

Pacific High

January 1980 •English

In April 1978, the annual Ensenada Yacht Race from Newport Beach, California, to Ensenada, Mexico, occurred over the course of twenty-four hours. More than 600 yachts and sailboats competed in the 200-mile race. In the final stretch into Ensenada Harbor, the winds calmed, leaving the boats moving slowly to the finish line.

Die Flotte der Römer

October 2024 •German

Surf Sail

September 1978 •English

A documentary following the attempt by three young people to be the first windsurfers to cross Cook Strait.

The Camino Voyage

February 2018 •English

A crew including a Writer, two Musicians, an Artist and a Stonemason embark on the Camino by sea, in a traditional boat that they built themselves on an inspiring, and dangerous, 2,500 km modern day Celtic odyssey all the way from Ireland to Northern Spain.

30 Years of National Geographic Specials

January 1995 •English

Celebrates 30 years of televised specials by The National Geographic Society.

Mergui

November 2018 •English

Using nature shots with narration and a musical score, this documentary tells the story about the Moken, Myanmar's last sea nomads.

The Wind Gods

April 2013 •English

A feature length documentary film following Larry Ellison's 10-year quest to bring the oldest trophy in international sport, The America's Cup, back to the United States.

Lost at Sea: The Search for Longitude

October 1998 •English

It was one of humankind's most epic quests - a technical problem so complex that it challenged the best minds of its time, a problem so important that the nation that solved it would rule the economy of the world. The problem was navigation by sea—how to know where you were when you sailed beyond the sight of land - establishing your longitude. While the gentry of the 18th Century looked to the stars for the answer, an English clockmaker, John Harrison, toiled for decades to solve the problem. His elegant solution made him an unlikely hero and remains the basis for the most modern forms of navigation in the world today. This film will be both a celebration of Harrison's invention and an adventure story. An expedition on a period sailing vessel as it sails the open sea will demonstrate the life and death importance of finding your longitude at sea.

Water Sports

October 1935 •English

This short film showcases water sports activities such as sailboat racing and surfboard riding, including Christian Peterson doing a human surfboard at 45 mph.

A Dream of the Mediterranean

April 1991 •Finnish

A documentary about Göran Schildt and his relationship with the Mediterranean.

The Navigators: Pathfinders of the Pacific

September 1983 •English

In hand-built, double-hulled canoes sixty feet long, the ancestors of today's Polynesians sailed vast distances using only the waves, the stars, and the flights of birds to navigate. Anthropologist Sanford Low visits the Caroline Islands of Micronesia to meet Mau Piailug, the last navigator initiated on his island and one of few men still practicing this once-essential art. He demonstrates his skill by sailing a replica canoe 2500 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti with no modern navigational instruments.

Holland Sailing

December 1956 •English

This Sportscope series entry highlights sailboat races in Holland.

Girt by Sea

February 2014 •English

Girt By Sea is a cinematic love letter to the coastline of Australia - a poetic celebration of our connection to the sea as documented through archival footage over the past 100 years.

Call Me Captain

July 1961 •English

The Norfolk Broads tourist film promotes the pleasures of boating.

Singlehanders

January 1982 •English

Follow two Canadians, Bob Lush and Mike Birch, aboard their yachts during the 1980 Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race. More than a record of this prestigious international sailing event, the resulting film is the starting point for an epic of challenge and determination.

Garbage Ho!

December 2022 •German

Harald Reichenbach sets off around the globe in a sailing boat collecting garbage from the sea with local people. Using a press, he compresses what they find and pours it into resin to form ‚G-Cubes’. He then takes the garbage back as art to the people who created it – consumers in industrialized countries. Nothing on the journey goes exactly as planned, however, and Reichenbach finds himself teetering between art and activism.

Dreams of Ice

November 1994 •Spanish

In 1992 the Universal Exhibition in Seville was held in Spain. Chile participated in this exhibition by displaying in its pavilion an ice floe captured and brought especially by sea from Antarctica. In these true facts is based the fantasy narrated in Dreams of Ice. Filmed between November 1991 and May 1992 on board the ships Galvarino, Aconcagua and Maullín, in a voyage that goes from Antarctica to Spain, in this documentary film in which dreams, myths and facts converge towards a poetic tale turned into a seafaring saga, in the manner of the legends of the seafarers that populate the mythology of the American continent and universal literature.

Home Is the Ocean

September 2025 •German

Over the past 20 years, the Schwörer family has sailed around the world while sharing their expedition examples of nature’s true beauty and inspiring people to live in balance with nature. Along the way, their family has grown, with six children being raised on their sailboat.

The Exiles

February 2024 •Indonesian

During the 1965 mass killings to eliminate the Indonesian Communist Party, the new regime banned scholars in the Soviet Union and China, forcing them into exile across Europe. This documentary follows those displaced individuals as they navigate the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Sweden, Germany, and Indonesia, reflecting on the traumatic events that uprooted their lives.

Sailing with Bushnell Keeler

January 1967 •English

In 1967, a young David Lynch grabbed his new Bolex 16mm camera, to film his friend and mentor Bushnell Keeler and brother Dave Keeler sailing on the Chesapeake Bay in Bush's King's Cruiser. This was David Lynch's very first film, which he prefers to call a "home movie". It depicts a man, a painter, who changed David's life forever pursuing the artist's life, which he continues to this day.