True Spirit, a new movie that began streaming on Netflix today, is the kind of movie that makes you realize that you aren’t doing nearly enough with your life. Because if Jessica Watson can sail around the entire world by herself at the age of 16, what’s our excuse for not washing the dishes for the third day in a row?
Written and directed by Sarah Spillane, True Spirit is based on the true story of Jessica Watson, who was determined to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world when she was just 16 years old. Australian actor Teagan Croft stars as Jessica, while Oscar-winner Anna Paquin stars as Jessica’s mother, Julie. And as the obligatory credit sequence of real-life footage will tell you, yes, this really did happen.
Read on to learn more about the True Spirit true story, and the inspiring tale of Jessica Watson’s real-life journey to sail around the world.
Is the True Spirit movie based on a true story?
Yes. True Spirit is based on the true story of Jessica Watson, an Australian sailor who became the youngest person ever to sail around the world, solo, when she was 16 years old. The movie True Spirit is based on the 2010 book of the same name that Watson wrote about her journey.
What is the True Spirit true story?
As you see in the movie, the now-29-year-old Jessica Watson was born to a family of sailors. Her parents, New Zealanders Roger and Julie Watson, gave all four of their children sailing lessons at a young age, and eventually moved their entire family to live on a boat for several years.
Though the World Speed Sailing Record Council had officially discontinued its “youngest” category after 18-year-old Jesse Martin sailed around the world in 1999, Watson had the ambition to beat his record. With the help of her parents and managers, Watson geared up for a solo sailing journey around the world, and sailed out of Sydney on October 18, 2009. After a seven-month voyage, she returned home to Sydney on May 15, 2010, where she was met by a cheering crowd. But it wasn’t easy. As you see in the film, during Watson’s trial run, her sailboat collided with a 63,000-ton bulk carrier, and her boat lost its mast.
Watson sailed nearly 23,000 nautical miles by herself: through the South Pacific and across the equator, south to Cape Horn at the tip of South America, across the Atlantic Ocean to South Africa, through the Indian Ocean, and around southern Australia. But despite this amazing feat, there were some critics who claimed that, actually, Watson didn’t technically sail around the world, because she didn’t sail far enough north to count as a true “around the world” sail, according to the Sailing Record Council’s rules. According to a 2010 report from The Guardian, Watson’s team responded to those critics by pointing out that, given that the Council wasn’t going to recognize her sail as a world record, she didn’t really need to adhere to the Council’s rules, did she?
The fact that there were a few persnickety naysayers didn’t stop Watson from becoming a celebrity in the sailing community. She kept a popular blog throughout her journey, in which hundreds of commenters would cheer her on. Her return was documented on national television, and a crowd of thousands showed up to welcome her, and her signature sail boat, Ella’s Pink Lady, home. And, as you see in the film, she was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2012.
While some changes were made for the movie, True Spirit writer/director Sarah Spillane strove to keep her movie as true to the, well, spirit of Watson’s real-life journey. In an interview for the True Spirit press notes, Spillane said, “I spent a lot of time with Jessica Watson during my research, which began around 2014. I visited Jess in Australia many times and we traveled together to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, so that I could meet her family. And as a result of spending this time with Jessica and her family, we became really great friends, which was very helpful for me to be able to pick up the phone or send a text as I entered the writing and development phase.”
For Watson’s part, she’s very happy with the accuracy of the film. In an interview for Tudum, Watson said, “It’s so uncanny how some things are just so accurate, how they got the exact same instruments from 13 years ago and all my stuffed toys and things like that down perfectly. It’s so weird that some things have been replicated so accurately.”