"The brutal honesty of this surf film melds with nuanced passion to create a staggering emotional intensity…"
The surf film Calypte documents the epic voyage of Mr Torren Martyn, an Australian who touches the clouds at six-feet-two and who only rides twin-fin surfboards shaped by Simon Jones, and surfer-writer Aiyana Powell, from Thailand to East Indonesia.
The pair have been asked by Martyn’s long estranged Daddy to deliver his thirty-five foot yacht from its home in Thailand to Indo with no time limit stipulated.
The message: get a little wind in those dirty old sails and enjoy testing yourselves, kids, and make one helluva surf film.
Neither Martyn nor Powell are sailors of great skill. Their experience but a few days fooling around on a training boat on a flat-water lake and shadowing Need Essentials owner Ryan Scanlon on his little yacht just offshore from the Yamba marine where he lives, or did last time I spoke to him.
Over the course of one year the pair are tested by the sea, by the weather and by the wild Indian Ocean.
“Our first night watches were intimidating to say the least,” writes Aiyana. “I didn’t know how to interpret the different coloured lights and found it difficult to determine how close other boats were or tell which way they were going. We had to learn how to use the AIS and navigate around the many fishing boats, some that were towing big nets. The shrimp boats were easy to see, but some of the bottom trawlers were not well lit and looked like proper pirate ships silhouetted in the night sky. It didn’t help that this area used to be notorious for actual pirates, and leading up to the trip we had heard lots of stories. It’s definitely a vulnerable feeling to be floating in foreign oceans on a small boat with literally no idea what you’re doing and imagine having to fight off real life pirates.”
Their surf film bona fides are well known, however.
And, Torren surfs, as you know, with the sort of flash and glitz that has made him a cult favourite; Aiyana, meanwhile, is sensational in her smooth cameos.
The brutal honesty of this surf film melds with nuanced passion to create a staggering emotional intensity, culminating in a resolve that is nothing less than heartbreaking.
Essential.