I am avoiding it for the moment.
Recall "Wind," from Francis Coppola, a talented man with, at the time, many resources. Quite not entertaining and the name became a joke here in Hollywood.
There was "Dead Calm," based on the Charlie Williams novel. No relation, but we had the same literary agent, Don Congdon, who died last year. He gave me the book by way of suggesting some nautical topics to work on. I said, whatever happened to Charlie? "Oh, " Don said, "he committed suicide."
Ten years ago there was a novel about a sailor nut who armed his yacht with some kind of missile and then set off on a solo offshore voyage of some sort of vengeance. I read it but, well, it;s not good when you can't even remember the details.
"The Four Seasons", containing people trapped with each other bareboating in the Caribbean, was a successful horror movie. Or at least I could relate to that horror more than Dead Calm.
Polanski's "Knife in the Water" was a work of art, but only incidentally about boats.
The drama problem for recreational sailing stories is there are no real stakes, and it's hard to make anyone care. Yachts are seen as toys, not instruments of definition, except by us.
Works better when there's commerce involved, like Moby Dick or Polar Star or The Perfect Storm, because with commerce at least you're not out there voluntarily. Choosing to put yourself in danger for the fun of it is hard on a story because there's always that, "well, what did you expect?" Whereas entering a situation you must, for some higher purpose, makes heroism more understandable. A tale of a schooner manned by Oxford dons heading for the evacuation of Dunkirk might more easily wind up being about something.
But when Hemmingway took out after U-boats in his motorboat, well, eyeballs are still rolling and it is a very unwholesome idea for a movie.
The thing about Redford, see, is he has to be a hero. He cannot for a moment depart from Redfordness. He reads a script and he says, I like the part where I do this, listen to this part where I do this. Odd, because his early Downhill Racer was stunning simply, or not so simply, because his character was a jerk. But that was a time of better movies and moviemakers.
There are never any flaws in my arguments, but if I were reading this I would simply reply:
All well and good, Socrates, but how do you explain "26 Hours," in which a hiker, no less self-centered than any sailboat dude, goes off for a meaningless personal weekend jaunt, falls down a hle, and cuts his arm off with a penknife. And why is that movie such a charming affirmation of life and all its joy?