Mark Towill, the youngest crew member of TransPac yacht Morning Light, and the only one from Hawaii, had two white-knuckle journeys to deal with. One was the training and the race itself, and the other is being plopped into the middle of what is either a small-budget motion picture or a big-budget documentary.

“;I've seen it twice now, and one of my big worries was that the film would hopefully be accurate,”; said Towill, who was a Punahou senior during filming. “;But they represent the race well. It's a nice job. All 15 of us (crew members) are happy with it. It explains sailing, and the sailing footage is awesome! It exceeded all my expectations.”;

Towill came on board in January 2007, the only high schooler in the crew, most of whom came from sailing families. There was two weeks of training every month until the race, which occurred during the summer. “;I worked it out with Punahou so I could keep up with my schoolwork and graduate on time,”; said Towill, now a sophomore at Brown University and—naturally—on the school sailing team. Because of the potential danger, each team member had to sign a complex liability waiver, as did Towill's parents, because of his age.

“;We got reimbursed for expenses, but got paid in experience. We lived together and sailed together every day. We became great friends, and I see some of the other guys all the time up here in New England. The closest of friends and the greatest of times.”;

The film tries to rustle up a little drama by whittling the original pack of 15 sailors down to 11. But there was a 12th person on board, cameraman Rick Deppe.

“;We had to concentrate on the sailing, and Rick did the filming and kept low,”; said Towill. “;He's a good sailor, but that wasn't his job. There were two or three hand-held cameras that we used every once in a while, plus three or four permanently mounted cameras that ran constantly.”;

They had company on the vast stretch of ocean: Cheyenne, a 125-foot diesel-powered catamaran that served as a camera boat, often shooting from a 30-foot crow's nest camera platform.

“;They'd pop up and go by shooting, and then disappear back toward the horizon to get long shots,”; said Towill. “;We'd wave, but that was about all the contact we had with them.”;

Samba Pa Ti, their closest competition and a professionally crewed yacht, was within sight for several days, sometimes uncomfortably close. According to Towill, “;TransPac vets say that was highly unusual. Generally, it's just your boat and the vast Pacific.

“;A lot of my friends at home without sailing backgrounds said the movie was a cool thing, and friends in the sailing community were even more impressed.”;

And is he back yanking the tiller and sheeting the yards and yo-ho-hoing, and whatever it is that sailors do?

“;It's cold here!”; exclaimed the kid from Hawaii. “;The sailing is VERY competitive. The New England district has the most motivated sailors in the college sailing world, so we're out on the water a lot.”;