Movies Come To Sooke!

Movies are coming to Sooke! At least the making of movies. You may have noticed an inflated liferaft being towed into Sooke Harbour on Tuesday, 19 October. Captain Ralph Hull of Explore! Charters in Sooke reports that The Discovery Channel was filming some scenes for an upcoming documentary on a marine disaster that happened off our coast in September 1995.

This episode is called "Storm Warning" and will be the ninth show in the winter series on the Discovery Channel, appearing in early spring. It depicts events that happened 750 miles out in the North Pacific when a father and son duo sailing from New Zealand to Victoria on the 27 foot Nanu Far encountered heavy seas after leaving Hawaii and eventually had to abandon ship. They spent 3~4 days disabled in heavy seas when the father injured his ribs and was incapacitated. The seas were relentless and the father was getting tossed around and battered, so eventually the son, Michael Kinloch, tried getting his father, Charles "Mickey" Kinloch, into the liferaft for a more comfortable ride, but the liferaft broke away. The son had to suddenly scramble into the liferaft with his father and they left the Nanu Far to the mercy of the sea. It eventually foundered. They then spent four days in the liferaft before being rescued by a passing Korean freighter, the Hundai Baron.

The purpose of the cruise was for a bonding session between father and son from Kamloops They got more than they bargained for. Marine disasters sometimes brings out the best in people and a bit of ingenuity happened in the Kinloch's rescue. The freighter's Chief Engineer Jeong built a big wire basket to catch the liferaft because the 15' seas were too rough to get the occupants out of the liferaft, especially the incapacitated father. The freighter scooped up the liferaft and brought them up on deck. All is well now, but a very harrowing experience on their bonding journey.

The "Storm Warning" crew came to Sooke to film some realism after spending some time in a wave tank in Vancouver trying to recreate aspects of the shipwreck. The weather here was not very rough but with the help of Karen and Kim Amorim of Anderson Cove and their 24 foot boat, My Donna, we managed to get some footage off Secretary Island looking to the west, out the Strait of Juan de Fuca. We enlisted the aid of some of Explore! Charters smaller boats to facilitate the filming, a 12' Zodiac and a 20' sloop. It took all day, but it was a nice day, sunny and warm.

Towing the I liferaft back into Sooke caused a bit of concern. Even though we had called Victoria Coast Guard to inform them that a liferaft would be deployed, the local Coast Guard Auxiliary came to check it out. Everything is okay, but watch for "Storm Warning!" on Discovery Channel in the spring.