Looking for a Hollywood Ending!

usna09mom
Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:49:26 +0000

Looking for a Hollywood ending
Roy Disney’s Morning Light Project almost ready for Transpac race. The young crew can’t wait to sail to Hawaii.
June 22, 2007

At 1 p.m. today off Palos Verdes, a horn will sound and 11 sailors aboard Morning Light will set a course for Hawaii and perform feverishly as one, trying to gain an edge on the competition.

Their sleek white vessel will sweep past Santa Catalina Island and continue far to the west, through the night, during which they’ll study the weather to determine the quickest route to the islands.

Then the call will be made, " Cut! " and Morning Light will about-face and return to Long Beach.

Today marks the last big dress rehearsal for the vessel’s long-anticipated July 15 start of the 2,225-mile Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

Eleven crew and four alternates, who were among 538 sailors to have applied for Roy E. Disney’s Morning Light Project, are all that’s left of a yearlong endeavor that will become a feature-length movie to be released in theaters next spring.

The film will show in vivid detail the molding of young sailing talent, the melding into a team, and the difficult and dangerous, yet highly rewarding task of racing on the high seas.

Undoubtedly, the climax scene will entail Morning Light streaking past the finish line near Diamond Head, its jubilant crew spilling forth tears of emotion. “There are very few times in someone’s life where you have a goal, a long-distance goal, and you get to pour everything you have into it, and for us this is one of those times,” says Chris Branning, a co-navigator from Sarasota, Fla.

Branning, 21, a junior at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, did not make the original cast of 30, but was allowed in when another sailor withdrew. Branning was 11th, however, when the cut to 15 was made, placing him on the vessel.

His job as co-navigator is to study weather and fleet positions, to enable Capt. Jeremy Wilmot, 21, an Australian and the only non-American on the boat, to choose the most fortuitous course. As for the distraction of film crews and cameras, Branning smiles broadly and says, “Our language got better as we went along, and then we just stopped caring about what we said. After all, we are sailors.”

Filmed crew is looking for a Hollywood ending;