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Abandon Ship: The Sinking of the SV Concordia
Thursday May 12, 2011 at 9 pm on CBC-TV
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Abandon Ship: The Sinking of the SV Concordia recounts the events of February 17, 2010 when a freak weather phenomenon called a microburst hit the tall ship causing her to capsize with 64 souls aboard. With her Captain below deck, no way to send a distress call and only four life rafts, the crew barely escaped. As the rafts drifted from the floating debris, the survivors had no idea if any one knew they were alive or would ever come to rescue them.
Natasha, one of the young survivors
“For a few hours I experienced my worst fear: that I had lost my daughter. I imagined her funeral, her empty room, her last moments. I imagined the horrible time in Canadian history that this would be, a modern day Titanic, a black mark for 64 families… forever. In those dark moments you pray, you hope, you beg. And for all of us those prayers were answered.”
This is a particularly personal story for the Director Dianne Carruthers-Wood as her daughter Natasha was aboard the ship at sinking.
The SV Concordia was a floating high school. She was home to hundreds of students over the years who never in a million years thought she would sink.
“I am haunted as we shoot this film and tell this story that we could be doing it in memorandum of these people. This crew wasn’t out to save themselves, they saved each other. That is the silver lining in this story.”
The gratitude and relief that followed gave voice to this film which is dedicated to the 64 survivors and their rescuers, the crews of the Hokuetsu Delight and the Crystal Pioneer.
Abandon Ship was produced by Dianne Carruthers-Wood & Shelley McGaw for Endless Media Group in association with CBC-TV.
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