Wind, Tide & Oar
Huw Wahl’s brave, meditative documentary set in the world of engineless sailing is a work of exceptional artistic skill.
Image courtesy of Tull Stories.
This film comes as a complete surprise. It is one of the most daringly ambitious and original films of the year but you would never anticipate that since what we have here is a documentary about sailing. Admittedly its focus is a novel one because it is concerned with people who choose to take to the water in vessels that have no engines. However, what makes Wind, Tide & Oar extraordinary is not its subject matter as such but what the filmmaker, Huw Wahl, seeks to do with it. The film is described as having been made by Wahl in collaboration with Rose Ravetz who is his sister and it was she who introduced him to her passion for sailing which grew into a commitment to doing it without an engine. That became the inspiration for Wahl to spend three years making this film and it is his personal artistry that has resulted in a work in which the viewer is able to recognise how reverting in this way to the days before engines is to rediscover something that has its own unique value.
Wind, Tide & Oar is divided into three parts: ‘The Tide Flows In’, ‘The Tide Flows Out’ and ‘The Turning Tide’. The last of these, which is also the shortest section, is the most conventional in that it stresses the ecological benefits of not using engines and incorporates footage about new ship designs made on that basis while also referencing commercial trading ships that have moved in this direction. That is interesting to know. However, the major part of the film seeks to do something far more unusual, namely to use film in a way that will capture some of the rapture that has been discovered by individuals like Rose. That is to say that Wahl is hoping to make the audience experience what these people experience and his way of attempting to do this is to take a path that breaks away from most of the conventions found in the traditional documentary.
In the film’s third segment we do briefly hear a song by five singing sailors and a couple of snatches of appropriate unaccompanied song, but a key pointer to the character of the piece as a whole is the decision to have no music beyond this. Nor is it by chance that Huw Wahl has an extra credit as sound designer. The noise of the water, the wind in the sails and the clanking heard on board may at times drown out remarks made by any crew members but they are a vital element in making one feel as though one is personally on board. Elsewhere there are clear voice-overs from Rose and other like-minded individuals who feature aboard their own engineless vessels and here we get various statements about where the appeal of this form of sailing lies. But for much of the time this approach is used in preference to direct speech to camera and the film also plays down any sense of a storyline.
The named locations start off in Essex and Suffolk but later Cornwall is more prominent as we move from river journeys to coastal sailing and on through the English Channel itself. In the process we see a range of craft, Rose’s “Defiance” among them, and hear from various enthusiasts including ones who deal in oysters and mackerel, but there is virtually no attempt to flesh out the personal lives of these individuals. Indeed, the film’s subtitle, "Encounters with Engineless Sailing", is in keeping with the episodic nature of what unfolds.
Understandably this very individual approach often playing down elements of recognised appeal is a risky one. That it works as well as it does is down to Wahl’s unusual skills that come into play so widely. Not only is he the director but also the editor and responsible too for the filming, all done on 16 mm. on a 1960s hand-held camera. What he brings to the piece is a poetical sense that never becomes too self-conscious and a feeling for atmospheric flow which converts his images into being akin to a visual equivalent of a piece of classical music. All of this is used in the service of enabling us to see and feel something of what these sailors have found for themselves. Early on it becomes clear that this is a film about people who truly love what they are doing, but Wahl’s aim is to capture something which will go beyond words to give viewers an in-depth sense of what it is that they have discovered. Although the practical issue of being eco-friendly comes up occasionally, other aspects of a wider kinder are also brought up in the comments which we hear: the interconnection with nature as one comes to rely on wind and tide, the independence that resides in being freed from a mode of life in which one is constantly organising everything and on top of that the physical satisfaction that one can find in this situation.
At 84 minutes Wind, Tide & Oar is a modest length which is apt. Perhaps one needs to be familiar with sailing to surrender fully to all the scenes of sailing the details of which will be more meaningful to some than to others. Those already drawn to this world may well regard this film as a masterpiece but its appeal may well be a little more specialised than was the case with another British documentary of rare artistry, 2023’s The Nettle Dress. Nevertheless, I totally admire the way in which Huw Wahl has approached the subject of engineless sailing in a manner which so fully brings into play his own highly developed artistic skills. Wind, Tide & Oar is anything but run of the mill.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Rose Ravetz, Jonathan Bailey, Elte Rauch, Giles Gilbert, Stevie Hunt, Jorge Langehan, The Brickfield Family, Richard Titchener, Hilary Halajko, Oliver Evans, Andreas Lackener.
Dir Huw Wahl, Pro Huw Wahl and Rose Ravetz, Ph Huw Wahl, Ed Huw Wahl.
Funded by Arts Council England-Tull Stories.
84 mins. UK. 2024. UK Rel: 25 April 2025. Cert. PG.
