Robert “Teno” Griffith talks about the beginnings of the documentary FOLLOWING SEAS, a film about his seafaring parents Bob & Nancy Griffith. The film will screen at AFI DOCS 2016 on June 23 & 24. Tickets here: bit.ly/1XaxRp8
So glad these films were found, saved and compiled into this amazing, beautiful documentary! Absolutely amazing and inspiring... Bravo to the Gs! Your legacy lives on in our hearts.
I read the book 20 years ago and it was among the influences that set me on my own sailing path. To see all of this amazing footage bring the book to life is incredible! Time to go reread Blue Water
I feel blessed that I managed to develop an extraordinary and completely serendipitous kindred friendship with Nancy for several years before we lost her in following seas. After sailing my own 26' sloop 'Desire' from Seattle for about 12k miles it was time for a serious refit if I wanted to sail her much farther. I hauled her onto a lava shelf in Kona Hawaii and noticed that there was this really interesting, yet highly neglected, riveted steel sailboat there. The few people that knew anything about the boat couldn't tell much beyond that it belonged to an old sailing gal named Nancy Griffith who was trying to sell it. I remember that her name sounded vaguely failure, but I just couldn't place it. About a month later I had my own boat nearly completely apart (the entire rig, and just about everything else but the hull and engine), when the yard hauled the old riveted steel sailboat from their storage yard to the work yard next to me. In short order 3 Australians showed up and said that they had just bought it and were bound and determined to fix it up to sail back to Australia where it had some historic significance of winning the Sydney to Hobart race a few times. About a week later there was much fanfare and commotion next to my boat when Nancy Griffith showed up to see how things were going with her old boat. I tried my best to distance myself from the whole thing as I had a ton of my own work to do to be able to sail again. At some point I noticed this salty old gall walking around my boat who said that she really loved it and started asking me questions about my journeys. She could tell I was pretty involved with my own stuff but asked me to give her a call when I had time to relax a bit and 'talk story' about sailing stuff. As soon as she left I asked the Australians who this incredibly intriguing woman was. I was pretty floored and humbled when I realized that I'd read her and her husband's book Blue 'Water: A Guide to Self-Reliant Sailboat Cruising' a few years before and had used it to help me get myself and my own boat ready to go off shore! A few days later I showed up at her coffee farm on the edge of Kealakekua Bay in South Kona (aka Captain Cook Bay) and we started an incredible friendship of our own.
I watched on Amazon today. I also would pay for watching this movie.Amazing life journey. I wonder if they ever got a “statue”or memory stone or tree or anything.....for celebrating this extraordinary people life!
I met Nancy after moving to Hawaii in 2002. We along with a few others started the Kona Coffee Farmers Association. I had heard that she sailed but never knew the whole story until the documentary, I pass by her place every week where some of the documentary background was filmed and think of her often.
Nancy Griffith came to Anchorage, AK once and spoke to our sailing club. My wife and I bought a copy of Blue Water and later chartered through Awahnee Charters for a Kona coast cruise. Working with your mother was great and her partner and crew let us achieve a few goals (night sailing) and opened our eyes to others (like free-diving for a stuck anchor). At that time, the Awahnee ferro-cement hull was on the hard in Kona Harbor; I hope she found a home as a monument to what was accomplished. A pretty shape indeed. The Following Seas movie is very well done and reminded me of Nancy's presentation in Anchorage. I would like to purchase Following Seas as a DVD, for my library. I watched it on Amazon, but OWNING means I can show it to anyone I want (i.e. our sons) and support the artists who created it. SO, is Following Seas available in DVD (NTSC) format (and also for our PAL friends)?
wonderful movie. Wonderful strong people -- I suspect a combinination of far superior intelligence and far superior work ethic. Do not run across many people like this in a lifetime.
I spent time on Palmerston Island, a major hangout of Nancy's, where she bought a freighter after her schooner and moved their copra. It was one of the most wild and wooley sailing/pirate experiences in the South Pacific. I spoke with Nancy hoping to produce a film of her experiences. She was a private person and wasn't interested in anyone taking her life and having their way with it so she declined. I totally respected her position and would have been true to her story but as an independant and protective person she was not going to trust someone she didn't really know. She was definitely an explorer and not your mainstream offshore sailor. I would love to be in touch with Teno and share some of the manuscripts and documents I have describing the freighter years with the Marster clan from Palmerston. If you read this Teno, please contact me. Your mom is one of the most fascinating sailors I've encountered, was loved by the Cook Islanders and out performed the most radical male sailors I encountered in my 15 years of offshore sailing.
So is it a matter of holding out for some kind of lump-sum deal then? If not, this could be monetized and find an audience tomorrow on Vimeo or similar service.
I like to buy the film for just seeing it, but unfortunly we can not buy it at al in the Netherland, we are sailors and like to travel around next year..can you help us out here? Greetings KARIN
