Vanuatu: Sea Eagle

The film in one line

The most advanced sailing machine ever built carries a handful of people who have seen everything into the last islands the charts forgot, and sails them into a volcano.

Cinematic & epic. The cocoon of the world's largest aluminium sailing yacht against the rawest, least-known corner of the Pacific: told through the eagle's eye, from the crow's nest, the drone, the masthead, the way the bird she's named for sees.

A boat that sails almost anywhere, almost silently: to the islands the maps forgot.

S/Y Sea Eagle · reference · © Tim McKenna

The three characters

Who this film is about

The Cocoon

Sea Eagle

The cocoon.

81m, the world's largest aluminium sailing yacht. Engines off, she still moves: near silence, 21 knots, on wind alone. Her chase boat, Osprey, runs the last mile she can't.

The Wild

Vanuatu

Where the charts run out.

83 islands in the least-known corner of the Pacific, the happiest country on Earth on its most disaster-exposed ground. Volcanoes you sail into, villages that greet a ship with song.

The Crossing

The Guests

People who have seen everything.

A small group who have been everywhere, carried into a place none of them had heard of a year ago. We witness them, we don't script them.

Character · the vessel

Sea Eagle

The biggest aluminium sailing yacht ever built, and she carries the group to the islands the maps get wrong. Engines off, she still moves: 21 knots on wind alone, in near silence. The point of all that engineering is quiet.

1

The cocoon that runs on wind.

Engines cut, ~3,500 m² of sail up, a skyscraper-tall carbon rig leaning 12° in near silence past an island with no name on the chart.

2

The rig against the volcano.

~200 ft of carbon mast beside a small, smoking, ancient cone: apex engineering and raw geology in a single frame.

3

The boat that feels, where the charts run out.

The largest carbon rudder ever built (1,250 kg) and the rigging are wired with fibre-optic load sensors, she reads her own strain in real time, carried far past where most boats ever go.

The motif: the eagle's eye. Named for the sea eagle, the raptor of these waters; chase boat Osprey; a crow's nest on a hydraulic lift ~200 ft up the mast. The aerial view is how we witness a place the maps forgot, from above, the way the bird sees.

Style & inspiration · the look we're chasing

Not stock shots of the boat, the actual grade and frame language, pulled from our own prior chapters. Lamima in Raja Ampat, the sunsets, the eagle's-eye aerials, the water and the kastom. This is the film's visual DNA.

Sailing yacht between karst islands, Raja Ampat — **Lamima, between the karsts**the prior chapter · Raja Ampat

Yacht at anchor at sunset, figure on the bow — **A figure on the bow at last light**scale & stillness

Aerial of a sailing yacht among green islands — **The eagle's eye**from above, the way the bird sees

Manta ray gliding underwater — **Under the hull**the water world

Hands on a hand drum — **Hands on a drum**the culture, close

Life aboard, open sea from the bowsprit — **Life aboard, open sea**the group, at ease

Reference frames · Stein Studios, Raja Ampat (Lamima) & Caribbean. The grade, framing and pace we carry into Vanuatu.

81 m · three-masted schooner · world's largest aluminium sailing yacht · Royal Huisman 2020 (refit 2025) · Dykstra + Mark Whiteley · largest carbon rudder ever (1,250 kg, load-sensing) · 34 winches / 18 t · ~2,580–3,552 m² sail · 21+ kn on wind alone · ~62 m air draft (Panamax) · 6 m draft · ~1,050 t · 45,000+ nm mostly under sail · chase boat Osprey (Windy SLR60, 43 kn).

Character · the place

Vanuatu

83 islands strung across the least-known corner of the Pacific, the happiest country on Earth, and its most disaster-exposed ground. Volcanoes you sail into, villages that greet a ship with song, blue holes fed by mountains, and waters the charts still get wrong. This is the wild the cocoon crosses into.

The locations · on the itinerary

Mount Yasur eruption — **Mount Yasur**Tanna · Day 11 · the peak

Women's water music — **The water music**the Banks · Day 3–4

Yasur crater rim — **Yasur's crater rim**Tanna

Ambrym volcano at dusk — **Ambrym at dusk**Day 8 · the Rom island

Blue hole — **The blue holes**Espíritu Santo · Day 7

Banyan over a blue hole — **Banyan over the blue**Santo

Lagoon and palm island — **The lagoons**Champagne Beach · Day 6

Aerial of the archipelago — **The archipelago**the far north

Kayaks and tenders — **The last mile**tenders & Osprey reach the wild

Village children — **Village life**the remote islands

Untouched coast aerial — **Untouched coast**the crossing

How we tell it · the storytelling engine

The company, and the thread

A voice-of-God narrator watches the group as one, never a single name, always they, together. The register is cinematic, playful, epic: with comedy (the laughs come from the characters on screen, never the voice). They chase the spirit of adventure like it's a place; the film is about the chase. The quest, not the trophy: we investigate a theme, we never prove one.

Theme · front-runner

The spirit of adventure

They heard it lives out here.

A group who've been everywhere, chasing the real thing. They think it's in the volcano. They think it's in the water. Each day, they go looking for it somewhere new.

Theme · front-runner

Can wonder be planned?

Or does it have to ambush you?

You can book the cave dive and the volcano. But can you schedule awe? A surprise theme, hiding as a question: what can still knock over people who've seen it all.

The thread · ten years

Not the first time

Octopus → Lamima → Sea Eagle.

The same friends, across a decade: a boat shaped like nothing you've seen, a wooden ship in Raja Ampat, and now the far edge of Vanuatu. A callback line or clip ties them. At the end, they're still out there, discovering.

The red thread · storian & the unbroken line

The spine that ties twelve days into one story, and the device that carries us from island to island.

The word

Storian

How the islands keep everything.

Bislama for sitting and sharing stories. With almost nothing written down, the story is the technology out here: maps, medicine, history, the way home, all carried in the telling. The whole trip is one long storian.

The image

The unbroken line

One line, drawn everywhere.

The boat's wake, the Ambrym sand drawing (one line = one story), the path across the map, the ten-year Octopus → Lamima → Sea Eagle thread. The same line, drawn across water, sand, sky and time.

The philosophy · The Wayfinders

Language is a library

Wade Davis's ethnosphere.

138 languages for 300,000 people: the densest on Earth, each a whole library carried in the telling. Every culture a unique answer to being human; a language lost is a library burned.

Gifting runs underneath it, a song for a song, the gift that asks to be answered; shared experiences and gifts are the spark that lights the human soul. Transitions: each island's storian hands over the myth of the next, and the line on the stylized map (gold ocean, navy mountains) draws us there.

The character intros · a 60–120s cold open

Each guest gets one true, funny or epic anchor up front: democratic, everyone gets one, nobody is named. Great intros do the heavy lifting so the narration can stay light the rest of the way.

1

The epic anchor.

"One of them once skied a mountain in Antarctica that nobody had ever skied, on his birthday, and toasted it at a bar made of ice." (Constantin · Mount Perry world-first · unnamed.)

2

The funny anchor.

"One of them does not like being filmed, which the camera took as a personal challenge." · "One of them spent a chunk of paradise looking for a very specific red frog."

3

The rest of the company.

One anchor each, once we have the guest list: the Niko-style group dynamic (the friend everyone affectionately roasts) is exactly the charm we protect.

Need from Stein: the guest list (even the two he knows) + the Octopus / Lamima clips or lines we call back to.

The story arc · the emotional curve

How the film breathes

One question, its meaning changing at every stop: not a tour, a quest. The myth is planted; the Coolidge turns it (Turning Point I); Loh reverses it (the midpoint, the islands start asking them something back); Ambrym is the crisis; Yasur is the answer. Cause, escalation, payoff: then the going on.

━ emotional intensity● beat◆ the peak, Yasur, Day 11

The story arc · treatment

The storyline, five chapters, three acts, one question

The five chapters are the map (what the daily shot-list keys off). The three acts are the drama, driven by one escalating question. v5 hybrid: our world + register, Nick Warren's engine.

Act I · The Search · Chapters I–II · Setup → No Turning Back → Turning Point I

Who they are, and the myth they went looking for

The question: is there anything left that can still surprise people who have seen it all, and where is the spirit these islands are a myth for? The company, interlaced and unnamed: some skied a first descent in Antarctica, some dived Raja Ampat with manta rays. Sea Eagle wakes: ~3,500 m² of sail, the engines cut, she keeps going on wind alone: no turning back. Santo, where Bali Ha'i slides away (the first clue: maybe it can't be reached directly). Then the deepest dive, the President Coolidge, down to the Lady at forty metres, and back up without the answer.

Turning Point I: they dive into the past and surface empty. Central image: one wake drawing a single line across an empty sea.

Act II · Where the Charts Run Out · Chapters III–IV · Confrontation → Midpoint → Crisis

The islands turn the question around

The captain, the crew, and the word storian: the first hint they're not chasing a place. Ureparapara: 200 ft of mast slides into a flooded crater, by any map, this should be it. Water music; 138 languages, each a library in the telling. Loh: the midpoint reversal: nobody paddles out to ask; they come to give. A song for a song. The question flips from "what can we find here?" to "what will we give in return?" Vanua Lava deepens the gifting; then Ambrym, the Rom masks burned the same day, the sand drawing smoothed flat. The story was never the marks. It was the telling.

Turning Point II / crisis: if nothing here can be kept, what are they meant to carry home? Central image: the unbroken line erased from the sand.

Act III · The Fire & the Answer · Chapter V · Final Approach → Climax → Resolution

The believers, the lighthouse, and where next

Tanna: the John Frum believers still marching for a man from the war, a story that outlived the fact and became a faith (the thesis, proven). Then Yasur: Cook's Lighthouse of the Pacific, throwing fire since 1774: the literal fire they thought the map led to, and, standing on the rim together, the realization that the spirit was never in the volcano. The going: not a place, but the myth itself: carried home and given away: and they leave on wonder. "So, where next?"

Resolution: the myth pays off; the wake becomes the sand drawing. Central image: silhouettes on the rim at blue hour; one line vanishing into open sea.

The narration · a living draft

The script

Before a frame is shot, a shape for the film. A full 20 minute voice-of-God draft: sparse narration that opens each scene and then gets out of the way, so the music and the footage carry it. Four acts, three claims, one question. Every beat carries the ideal line we hope someone says, two fallbacks, and the exact question that produces it.

The register, in five lines:
· The narrator watches the group as one, never a single name. It is they, together.
· Playful, not solemn. Shane McConkey, not a comedian. The comedy comes from the characters, never the voice.
· Three claims, planted early: the machine, the place, the people. Heard it, went at it, it was true.
· The question is never spoken. Naming it kills it. The register on screen is wonder, and the spirit of the thing.
· It lands on what they carry: the only thing you keep is the thing you give away.

Read the full script · v5 →

Every version, kept v5the hybrid · current v5.1superseded v4five act v1first draft

Opens on a new page · four acts, scene by scene, with the ideal lines and fallbacks inline · the cold open is a reserved slot for a moment that has not happened yet · every past version stays readable through the rail above.

The deepest dive · a beat of its own

The SS President Coolidge

An awesome stretch of water on the route, and a story the film can't skip. A golden-age ocean liner, two saltwater pools, Art Deco salons, a porcelain lady riding a unicorn: turned troopship, and killed by her own side: safe-passage orders left off the page, two American mines, and a captain who drove her onto a reef so all five thousand men could walk off. All but two did.

One of the two, Army Captain Elwood Euart, was already ashore when he turned back into the drowning ship for the men trapped in the infirmary, and never came out. He stayed inside her for seventy-three years. Today she is the largest diveable shipwreck on Earth: bow at twenty metres, stern at seventy, and "The Lady" waiting forty metres down. Our deepest dive: three to five dives a day, and the one beat we cut with archival.

Then · the grand liner & her last morning

Coolidge in her prime, 1930s — **1931: the grand liner**archival · public domain

Coolidge sinking, 1942 — **26 Oct 1942: her last morning**archival · US Navy / NARA

Coolidge beached, 1942 — **5,340 walked off**archival · US Army

Now · what we dive, and shoot ourselves

The Lady riding the unicorn, 40m down — **"The Lady": the porcelain relief, forty metres down**the deep pilgrimage

Diver deep inside the Coolidge wreck — **Inside her, a diver in the hull**the wreck now · reference

Coral-crusted cargo in the hold — **The holds, cargo, trucks, war machine**the wreck now · reference

The bow gun of the Coolidge — **The forward gun**the wreck now · reference

The bow of the Coolidge at 20m — **The bow, twenty metres**the wreck now · reference

Prime & sinking = archival (the deliberate exception). The wreck today, "The Lady," the holds, the guns, the bow: we shoot ourselves, and cut the two together. Wreck reference: Basiove · McMorrow · asisbiz.

A long way to come, to stand next to a hole in the world that throws fire.

Mount Yasur · Tanna · the peak

The schedule · both time zones

The timeline

Stein shoots aboard. Nick edits from California. Vanuatu runs 18 hours ahead, so Stein's calendar date is always one ahead of Nick's, and everything Stein uploads in his evening is waiting on Nick's desk that same morning. One clean handoff every 24 hours.

The film is complete and ready to screen on Wednesday Aug 5 in Vanuatu, which is Tuesday Aug 4 in California. That is a full day before the last night aboard, on purpose.

M1 · before Jul 26

Narration in

The v5 wav sits in the DaVinci Cloud project before Stein lands. Day 0 has something to cut against.

M2 · Fri Jul 31

Rough cut

Six to seven minutes, uncoloured. The actual front half of the film, not a highlights reel.

M3 · Mon Aug 3

The two decisions

Commit the weather fallback. Run the log gate. Both get made that night, even if the evidence is thin.

M4 · Tue Aug 4

Cold open locks

The empty 20 second slot at 0:00 closes. Locked means uploaded, not spotted.

M5 · Wed Aug 5

Delivery

The complete film, ready to show. Tuesday Aug 4 end of day, California.

Day	Vanuatu	California	Where	What it gives the film	Milestone
Day 0	Sun Jul 26	Sat Jul 25	Port Vila to Kakula	Embark. The board starts today.	Narration wav laid in
Day 1	Mon Jul 27	Sun Jul 26	Maskelynes	First landing. The postcard ask.
Day 2	Tue Jul 28	Mon Jul 27	Santo, the Coolidge	The deepest dive.
Day 3	Wed Jul 29	Tue Jul 28	Gaua and Rowa	Water music. The storian.	Real editing starts
Day 4	Thu Jul 30	Wed Jul 29	Ureparapara	The sail-in through the breached crater.
Day 5	Fri Jul 31	Thu Jul 30	Loh, Torres	The island walks to the beach.	ROUGH CUT DUE
Day 6	Sat Aug 1	Fri Jul 31	Vanua Lava, Champagne	A song for a song.
Day 7	Sun Aug 2	Sat Aug 1	Mavea blue holes	Rest beat. Long passage.
Day 8	Mon Aug 3	Sun Aug 2	Ambrym	The Rom. The mask burns. The drawing is wiped.	CLIMAX + THE TWO DECISIONS
Day 9	Tue Aug 4	Mon Aug 3	Undine Bay	The crossing turns for home.	COLD OPEN HARD LOCK
Day 10	Wed Aug 5	Tue Aug 4	Erromango	The stillness. Safety pickups only.	DELIVERY. FILM COMPLETE.
Day 11	Thu Aug 6	Wed Aug 5	Tanna, Yasur	Bonus capture only. The film is already finished.	v2.0
Day 12	Fri Aug 7	Thu Aug 6	Port Vila	Disembark.

Yasur and John Frum fall on Day 11, after delivery, so they are a post-trip addition and the delivered film does not depend on them. The climax is Ambrym on Aug 3. Every frame of the closing movement comes from Day 0 to Day 9.

The field log & capture protocol →

The shot list · daily checklist

What we capture

All live, in-camera: no archival. Sea Eagle's story is captured throughout; the itinerary (Rob McCallum, July 1) drives the wild. Every day has one job: advance the question. Three days carry the weight, the Coolidge (Turning Point I: dive deep, surface empty), Loh (the midpoint reversal: they come to give), and Ambrym (the crisis: the drawing erased). Shoot those for the turn, not just the scenery. Check each shot as you get it: saves to this device.

0 of 0 captured

Live, on camera

Captain & crew: the questions

Her character comes out of them, live. No archival: she's revealed through the people who sail her.

At the helm of the largest aluminium sailing yacht ever built, what does she actually feel like to move?
21 knots without burning a drop of fuel. Walk me through the moment you cut the engines and she takes the wind.
These are some of the least-charted waters on the planet. How do you read water the charts get wrong, with six metres under you?
What happens in the ninety seconds when all three sails go up at once?
Her rig and rudder read their own loads in real time. What is she telling you right now, have you felt her at her limit?
You've sailed her 45,000 miles. Why do places like this matter: what does she let you reach that nothing else could?
You just came through the 2025 refit, what did you change, and why?
Fourteen of you running something the size of a building, weeks from the nearest port: what's that like as a community?
There's a crow's nest 200 feet up. What do you see from up there, over an island like this?

Restraint is the discipline. The camera witnesses; it never performs.

Stein Studios · Raja Ampat

The mandate

How we shoot it

The mandate

The witness, not the performer
Natural light only
Cinematic & epic: awe, scale, restraint
Slow / static, 5–10s minimum; let it breathe
Sound-first: clean ambient before the camera
All live capture, zero AI imagery: one archival exception: the Coolidge (1931 / 1942)

The voice

VO, ElevenLabs, an omniscient cinematic narrator
Register: Attenborough / Herzog gravity
Scripted spine written first, off the itinerary
Guests are witnessed (verité), never scripted
The captain & crew carry Sea Eagle's character, live

Everything is captured live. Nothing is staged.

Stein Studios · Indonesia

Lock before the shoot

What we still need

Two conversations turn this framework into a locked plan.

For EYOS · Angela Pennefather (Expedition Leader)

Which villages perform, and when: Loh, Ureparapara, Ambrym Rom, Gaua water music?
Chief fees + filming rights at each landing.
Is the Ureparapara sail-into-the-caldera on, given Sea Eagle's 6 m draft?
Coolidge dive: operator booked, guests certified for a tech deep wreck?
Yasur contingency if the alert level is ≥2. Drone/filming permits, who, by when?

For the Captain of Sea Eagle

Full run of her for filming, bridge, engine room, rig, crow's nest, crew?
The crow's nest ride and sails-up-at-dawn: can we stage the light?
Anchorages that let us shoot the rig against a volcano; where Osprey does the last mile.
Current guest/crew count, and the exact refit scope.

We put no false frame on screen.

Stein Studios · Lamima, Indonesia

Sea Eagle · do not state on camera

Vessel corrections

Masts increase in height bow→stern, NOT equal.
Owner stays off-camera (Vessel-YES / Principal-NO).
Chase boat is "Osprey" (Windy SLR60).
Hydro-regen under sail unconfirmed: ask the engineer.
Confirm current guest/crew count with the captain.

Vanuatu · do not script as fact

Place corrections

Ambrym has no sea-glow since 2018: lava lakes drained.
Water music's home is Gaua, not Ureparapara.
Dugongs: Maskelynes & Santo, not the Banks.
Coolidge: 2 deaths; hero was Army Capt. Euart.
Champagne fizz often invisible; shoot at dawn.

Ten years of chasing it, the same friends, the strangest corners of the map.

Stein Studios