A new sailing documentary was released in April called Women & the Wind. It is being screened at clubs and associations in Europe and South and North America to spread the inspiring story of three women aboard an old James Wharram catamaran trying to save the oceans from plastic pollution.
Yet their story is also that of three women stepping away from civilization in an effort to reconnect with the natural world in all its rawness, beauty and power.
The story starts with young Kiana Weltzein who in 2019 decided to leave her high-powered real estate career in Miami to learn to sail. She met a mentor who taught her the basics and then she bought a 50-year-old 40-foot Wharram cat made of plywood and in need of repair.
Sailing in tandem with her mentor, Kiana made a single handed passage across the North Atlantic and from that moment on she was the captain of her own ship and the master of her fate.
During that passage Kiana had been appalled at the amount of plastic and other rubbish she encountered and resolved to focus on ridding the seas of garbage, particularly plastic.
In the Canary Islands, she met surfer and adventurer Laerke Heilmann and the two hatched a plan. They then invited filmmaker and videographer Aliz Jireh to join them to document their save-the-oceans project.
While the documentary has a definite ecco-friendly theme, it is also a lovely chronicle of what the cruising life and the freedom of the sea does to people who fully embrace it.
Read more and find a screening here.
Watch the trailer below.
