Moxie Marlinspike, in partnership with Anarchist Yacht Club, is the maker behind this “Computer Hastily Created 14-Day Return Policy” film about ordinary sailors.
After a brief history lesson in black and white photos of how the advent of fiberglass boats made sailors beyond the top tax brackets and some of the craziest sailing feats in history, the film highlights four of the film’s installations; Sha, a perfectionist with unrivaled attention to detail, a devoted sailing fanatic named Ellie, a strong-willed but often confused crew who loves tossing things into the sea past Kirsten, and finally a hippie commentary The cast and crew of The Man and the Lonely Man, Moxie.
The story begins when Moxie responds to a newspaper ad for a $1,000 sailboat near Ft. John, the Lauderdale, Fla., advertiser, picked Moxey from a nearby train station and took him to the canal that ran through his backyard, where a Pearson 30 sailboat was parked. The boat was in dire shape—no masts, no engines, no fittings, no bulkheads, no hatch covers, just a fiberglass hull—but John offered to let him work for a while on the crumbling dock the boat was sitting on.
After sending the photo to others and getting likes, he pulled the trigger and bought it. He worked alone from sunrise to sunset for three days before others joined him, after which they lived like bums in the multimillion-dollar Ft. Lauderdale went home while he worked to make the boat seaworthy.
They quickly learn that much of the voyage is working on the ship itself, and they discover that there is always something going to break on board – and there is nothing like being at sea in an environment of wood and metal. The rest of the film consists of her voyage across the Caribbean and up the East Coast, offering all sorts of pseudo-navigational tricks for the uninitiated, before heading back to Haiti, where Moxie bid farewell to sailing and forged her own path.
