1982 yacht capsized true story

The Woman Whose Survival Inspired a Shark Week Movie Lived a Truly Incredible Life

Updated Aug. 1 2019, 12:30 p.m. ET

Everyone's talking about Capsized: Blood in the Water , Shark Week 's first TV movie. It's definitely a Hollywood production ( Josh Duhamel plays the lead), but Capsized: Blood in the Water is actually inspired by a real-life tragedy. 

When a yacht capsized during a 1982 storm and sunk off the coast of North Carolina, there were only two survivors. Twenty years later, one of them passed away. How did Deborah Scaling Kiley die? Here's what you need to know about this incredible woman.

How Did Deborah Scaling Kiley Die?

Miraculously, Deborah survived the 1982 boat crash that claimed three lives. She passed away 20 years later on August 13, 2012, at the age of 54. Per the Star-Telegram , Deborah died in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where she had recently moved. 

An obituary archived at Legacy.com did not list Deborah's cause of death. Her family requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent to the Fort Worth Stock Show Equine Scholarship Fund or the Humane Society .

What happened to Brad Cavanagh, the only other survivor from the 1982 boat accident? 

Brad Cavanagh and Deborah Scaling Kiley were both featured in a 2005 episode of I Shouldn't Be Alive on the Discovery Channel. At the time of production, Brad was still sailing as a professional yachtsman. 

The 1982 boating tragedy did, however, change how he lived his life every day. "It's not something you just turn off when it's over. You keep living in that survival mode," he said in the Discovery Channel program. "I don't know if you're shell shocked or what you are, but it's impossible to just turn it off and go back to being the way you were before."

Deborah made the most of her life after the 1982 accident.

She became a motivational speaker and wrote a book about surviving in 1984 called Albatross: The True Story of a Woman's Survival at Sea .

"I never wanted to write it," Deborah said in a 1994 interview with South Florida's Sun Sentinel . "I mean, why dredge up memories? And how could I take money? After all, three people died, so it's sort of like blood money."

But when an associate suggested she donate part of the profits to charity, Deborah had a change of heart. "That sort of made it OK," she said, "and it occurred to me that what had helped me most, what probably saved my life, was the Outward Bound program at my high school, Colorado Springs School."

Sadly, another tragedy on the water greatly impacted Deborah's life. 

On August 23, 2009, Deborah's 23-year-old son John Coleman Kiley IV died. According to his Legacy.com obituary, John "was as an avid sailor and taught sailing at the Wianno Yacht Club in previous summers. His accidental death was in the waters nearby."

Even in the worst situations, Deborah remained an optimist. 

"Every day I wake up, and it's a new day and I'm happy," she said tearfully in the 2005 Discovery Channel series I Shouldn't Be Alive . "I always, always try to find something good in the bad things that happen to me. There's never a day that you're more thankful for life than the day you almost die."

Deborah Scaling Kiley's book is available on Amazon . You can watch the TV movie based on her ordeal via the Discovery Go app or a paid Hulu subscription. 

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This Is the Most Horrifying Shark Story of All Time

It’s easy, by default, to describe any disturbing story as the stuff of your worst nightmares — accidentally following an embarrassing Instagram account, losing 27 contacts in your eye , getting trapped in an elevator for a week . But the true story at the center of Shark Week’s first original movie is more horrifying than any Jaws movie. It’s official: Getting stranded and watching sharks slowly kill off my friends is now my worst nightmare.

The story, which inspired The Discovery Channel’s Capsized: Blood in the Water , dates back to 1982, when a billionaire hired a group of five friends to sail his yacht, named Trashman , from Maryland to Florida, Newsweek reports. Not long into the journey, the group suffered their first maritime nightmare when a violent storm caused the yacht to capsize, leaving the passengers stranded on a small dinghy without food or water. What would unfold over the next five days is horrifying. Per Popular Mechanics , the blood from one passenger’s sustained injuries drew the massive sharks to the boat, but she wasn’t the first to die. Instead, the first victim was a passenger who, delirious from subsisting on seawater and alcohol, jumped in the sea after thinking he had seen land. Except … there was no land. There were, however, tiger sharks.

“All of a sudden we just hear this shrill scream,” Deborah Scaling-Kiley, one of the survivors, said in the documentary I Shouldn’t Be Alive , per The Sun . “Blood-curdling. Then it was over, silence. There was no crying, nothing. There was no doubt what got him. The sharks got him.”

It didn’t stop there. Not long after, another man on the boat jumped into the water after notifying the others that he was going to buy beer and cigarettes. While the remaining passengers tried to stop him, they were ultimately unsuccessful, and they felt another shark devour him underneath the boat. Then, the passenger who had sustained injuries during the capsize died from blood poisoning. While one passenger, Brad Cavanaugh, considered eating her body, Newsweek reports , Cavanaugh and Scaling-Kiley decided to give their deceased friend a burial at sea. She, too, was eaten by sharks.

After five days of horrific conditions, the two survivors managed to flag down a Russian cargo ship, which saved them as they were on the brink of death. (While Scaling-Kiley died of unknown causes in 2014, Cavanaugh is reportedly still alive, making his living off an unimaginable career, given this experience: He’s a mariner.)

Pretty sure I, uh, won’t be watching this movie.

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Discovery's Capsized: Blood in the Water is based on the harrowing true story of a sailing crew stuck adrift for days in shark-infested waters. The full-length film marks Shark Week 's first-ever original movie, although some details were changed compared to the disastrous event.

Sharing the story of the 1982 fateful trip, Capsized: Blood in the Water showcases how much a person can endure when survival instincts kick in. The film also explores how hope could make all the difference in life and death situations. Furthermore, it examines the warning signs that some of the crew should have pointed out which could have prevented the deadly trip.

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Capsized: Blood in the Water ends with only two survivors who witnessed more terror than anyone could ever imagine. Capsized: Blood in the Water informs viewers about what happened to the survivors after they were rescued by a Soviet cargo ship. But along the way, some changes were made to quicken the story and dramatize it for television.

Capsized: Blood in the Water True Story Differences

Perhaps the most notable changes in Capsized: Blood in the Water 's true story is the dynamic and demeanor of the crew. John Lippoth (Josh Duhamel) serves as the yacht's captain and the movie portrays him as a skilled boater who keeps his crew in line. In reality, John was lazy, inexperienced, and spent most of his time drinking with crewman Mark (Joshua Close) below deck. Even though the new guy, Brad (Tyler Blackburn), is shown as being a novice to the boating world, the real Brad Cavanagh was highly adept in the sea, as was Deborah Scaling-Kiley (Beau Garrett).

The capsize of the boat is also hurried in the film compared to the actual event. The movie begins with the yacht, Trashman, leaving Annapolis, Maryland, as it sets sail for Florida. The true journey began in Portland, Maine, before it made a stop in Annapolis. On the way to Florida, the Trashman hit rough seas during a long storm. The crew took turns taking the watch and steering the ship which lasted for the better part of a day. John and Mark had been drinking and they fell asleep when they were supposed to be on duty. The yacht had taken too much damage, causing it to sink. In the movie, a storm quickly approaches and capsizes the boat almost immediately.

John's girlfriend Meg Mooney (Rebekah Graf) was injured by some of the boat's rigging when the group tried to make it to the inflated lifeboat. They were forced to take refuge under the lifeboat for 18 hours before the wind died down and they were able to flip it and get inside. Meg injures her leg before they are forced out of the boat in the movie. She later dies from her injuries in the same fashion as Meg did in 1982. Both John and Mark fall victim in a similar fashion as they did during the real event. They hallucinate and fall in the water before they are attacked, and ultimately killed, by sharks. Mark's hallucinations stemmed from drinking saltwater which is what made both men lose their minds in the true tale.

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What Happened After Capsized: Blood in the Water's Ending?

Capsized: Blood in the Water 's ending provides a follow-up on the lives of Brad and Deborah following their rescue. After five days without food and water, the sole survivors were picked up by the Russians on October 28, 1982. The pair then spent eight days in the hospital as they were treated for severe dehydration and starvation.

Deborah went on to have a successful speaking career and wrote three books about her survival. It was revealed that she died in 2012. Brad suffered from the trauma for years but he later overcame the terrifying memories. He eventually became a boat captain and often travels along the same route where the group capsized. Capsized: Blood in the Water 's ending text appropriately honors the three crew members that were lost on the journey.

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• SR Originals

“Blood-curdling. Then it was over." Deborah watched three of her friends die in shark-infested waters.

When Deborah Scaling Kiley boarded an 18-metre luxury yacht on a clear sunny day in October 1982, she was excited about the six-day voyage of fun and relaxation that lay ahead of her.

The 24-year-old experienced sailor, along with Captain John Lippoth, his girlfriend Meg Mooney, Brad Cavanagh and Mark Adams, had just been hired by a billionaire to deliver his yacht  Trashman, from Maine to its new owner in Florida.

“The weather was beautiful, the boat was fun to steer,” Deborah recalled in the Discovery Channel’s 2005 series I Shouldn’t Be Alive . “It really didn’t get much better than it was right then.”

But two days into their trip, the blue skies darkened and a brewing storm loomed on the horizon. By nightfall, the yacht was in the middle of a violent tropical storm.

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But What Have You Done To Your Face

As the rain battered down and the yacht rode the giant waves like an out of control rollercoaster, Meg fell heavily and slashed open her leg.

“You could see the bruising begin,” Deborah said. “I could just tell she was in so much pain.”

Water was soon pouring into the boat. There was nothing the five could do. The yacht was sinking.

They jumped into the swirling waters and clung onto a small dinghy as they watched the  Trashman slip under the raging ocean, never to be seen again.

As they clambered into the dinghy, Mark felt something nudge his leg.

To Deborah’s horror, she made out what looked like torpedo-shaped bodies in the water. At first she thought they were fish, but then they moved closer.

“I realised it was hundreds of sharks. They were everywhere,” she told I Shouldn’t Be Alive .

“The minute we got in there were fins everywhere in the water. I don’t mean like two or three, I mean ten, twenty. They were everywhere.”

Drawn from miles away by the scent of blood that had been seeping steadily from Meg’s gaping wound, the sharks were ready to hunt. From all directions, the giant creatures began ramming the tiny vessel as the five held on.

The storm passed and daylight eventually came, but all the five could see was the never-ending expanse of the blue sky melding into the blue ocean.

By the third day, all hope seemed lost.

Watch the trailer for Capsized: Blood In the Water, the Shark Week film based on this true story of survival. Post continues after. 

Meg's leg had become seriously infected and she was fading fast. Everyone was starving and unbearably thirsty. So desperate were John and Mark for water, they lent over the side of the boat and began gulping down the salty seawater.

It only took a few hours before the hallucinations took hold of John and Mark’s mind.

John suddenly said that he could see land. He couldn’t be convinced otherwise and dived into the water and starting swimming towards the patch of land that only he could see.

“All of a sudden we just hear this shrill scream,” Deborah recalled in I Shouldn’t Be Alive.

“Blood-curdling. Then it was over, silence. There was no crying, nothing. There was no doubt what got him. The sharks got him.”

Then Mark mentioned the he had to run to the store to buy beer and cigarettes. He stepped off the side of the boat.

“We feel this bam. And then we feel this bam again. There’s this frenzied attack and the sharks are eating Mark underneath the dinghy,” Deborah said. “It was without a doubt the most horrifying moment of my entire life.”

Lying in a rubber boat that was filled with a fetid mixture of urine, puss, and blood, it soon became clear Meg was close to dying. Her wound had festered to such a state that her leg had turned black; the infection had caused her to become catatonic.

“We were sitting there watching Meg die. It was tragic,” Deborah recalled.

When Deborah and Brad next drifted back to consciousness from their fitful slumber, Meg was dead.

In that moment, Brad considered eating Meg’s body.

“We were starving, and you’d heard of cannibalism at sea. Are we going to nourish ourselves by… by… somehow figuring out how to butcher her and eat her?” Brad recalled on I Shouldn’t Be Alive.

Warned by Deborah that Meg’s body was too infected, the two decided to throw her body into the water. They removed her clothes and jewellery to return to her family.

“It was such a sad moment because we laid her naked body on the side of the raft and then we decided we couldn’t just roll her off. She needed some sort of funeral,” Deborah said. “So we said the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 and we gently pushed her body overboard.”

The two went straight to sleep. They couldn’t again bear witness to sharks attacking another one of their friends.

It had now been five days since their yacht had capsized. Weak from hunger and dehydration, covered in massive staph infections, and traumatised from what they had endured, Deborah and Brad were losing all hope. They began grappling with the very real possibility that they, after all they had been through, were going to slowly die lost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Then Brad looked up and on the horizon there appeared to be a cargo ship in the distance. He looked again. And again. It wasn’t a mirage. It was an actual a ship and it was coming straight toward them.

The pair began yelling and waving. Someone standing on deck waved back.

“I didn’t care who these people were or where we were going,” Deborah said. “I was there and Brad was there and we were alive.”

After five days lost at sea, stalked by ferocious sharks and watching their friends die in the most brutal fashion, Deborah Scaling Kiley and Brad Cavanagh had managed to survive .

"Every day I wake up, and it's a new day and I'm happy," Deborah reflected tearfully in I Shouldn't Be Alive. "I always, always try to find something good in the bad things that happen to me. There's never a day that you're more thankful for life than the day you almost die."

Deborah went on to become a motivational speaker and in 1994, wrote a book about her experience called Albatross: The True Story of a Woman’s Survival at Sea,  with part of profits donated to charity. Brad, almost unimaginably, continued to work as a mariner, eventually becoming a boat captain, and often sailed along the same route where the Trashman  had sunk. They both appeared in docu-series I Shouldn’t Be Alive in 2005.

In 2012, Deborah died of unknown causes in her home in Mexico at the age of 54.

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Entertainment

Josh Duhamel's Terrifying Shark Week Movie Is Based On A Real Shark Attack

In recent years, Discovery Channel has prided itself on its true, educational content about sharks for Shark Week. But, this year, the network is mixing things up with its first scripted feature film. Don't worry, though, Capsized: Blood in the Water is based on a true story , according to a Discovery press release — so there's still an educational factor there. The press release says the movie depicts an October 1982 ship capsizing that left the crew trying to survive in the Atlantic ocean for days while sharks surrounded them.

Per TV Insider, the movie stars Josh Duhamel as Captain John Lippoth, Rebekah Graf as his girlfriend Meg Mooney, and Beau Garrett, Josh Close, and Tyler Blackburn as sailors Deborah Scaling, Mark Adams, and Brad Cavanaugh. Those names, combined with the October 1982 timeline, reveals which true story the movie is inspired by.

According to Popular Mechanics , the real story closely mimics the Shark Week take. In 1982, a captain, his girlfriend, and three sailors were sailing a yacht (named the Trashman) from Maryland to Florida when a storm caught them unaware. The yacht sank, leaving the crew to fend for their lives on a lifeboat. The Star reported that they had no food or water , because their emergency gear had previously been taken by the storm. They were also off the coast of North Carolina, which is a highly trafficked area for migrating sharks .

Popular Mechanics reported that the captain's girlfriend was injured during the sinking, and her blood attracted sharks, who closely followed the raft. People magazine reported that the sharks in question were tiger sharks .

Tiger sharks have a reputation for eating just about anything, and they've even earned the nickname "garbage can of the sea." (I don't want to make a joke here about the yacht being named Trashman, but just know that I did think about it.) As Bustle previously reported, tiger sharks have been found with everything from license plates and tires to suits of armor and video cameras in their stomachs.

And while fatal shark attacks are low (on average only six people die per year worldwide), one or more of the Trashman crew could find themselves in dire trouble in the movie version of the event. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say... it gets intense.

If it follows the true story, it will include hallucination, people drinking sea water, catastrophic injuries, and a desperate hope for rescue from a passing Russian ship days after capsizing.

TV Insider reported that Howard Swartz, Discovery's senior vice president of production and development, didn't want the film to "demonize" sharks. "One thing we've done really well over 30 years is celebrate sharks and try to get away from the perception of them as these mindless killing machines," Swartz said.

However, the trailer for the movie (above) is terrifyingly dramatic, so viewers may walk away a little frightened... at least of sinking off the coast of North Carolina with nothing to eat or drink and only a life raft to keep them alive. That's a healthy fear. But as the six deaths per year worldwide shows, sharks themselves are not really out to get humans — even if they do get some humans in this movie.

'I watched sharks eat my friends one by one after drunk captain crashed our yacht'

Deborah Scaling-Kiley boarded a yacht for a six day sailing trip to the other end of the country while basking in the sunshine. But when the weather took a turn for the worse, tragedy struck

• 13:01, 14 Jul 2021

When 24 year old Deborah Scaling-Kiley set off for a routine sailing trip from Maine to Florida, the conditions on the water were perfect.

Speaking on US TV show I Shouldn't Be Alive, Deborah said: “The weather was beautiful, the boat was fun to steer. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

But just four days into the 1,300 mile expedition in 1982, the yacht was pulled into a tropical storm and capsized in the middle of the vast Atlantic Ocean.

Deborah had set off with four other crew members - Meg, Brad, Mark and Captain John Lippoth.

But when the boat was blighted by 30 feet waves and 112km/hr winds, the scramble for safety had horrifying consequences.

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The Captain, who had been drinking, fell asleep at the helm and Deborah woke in the middle of the night to hear voices panicking as icy water poured into the cabin.

Meg, who was the girlfriend of Captain John, slashed her leg as the crew was thrown about in the stormy conditions - leaving her with an open wound.

The five managed to climb into the life raft, but the blood from Meg's wound attracted hundreds of killer sharks who circled and rammed the boat to claim their prey.

Over the next five days, the five crew members battled the odds in an epic bid for survival - but only two made it back to shore.

Surrounded and alone

As the crew jumped onto the 11-foot dinghy that Mark had inflated, he felt something nudge his leg.

That's when Deborah noticed the hundreds of sharks in the water, surrounding the crew on the life raft.

She recalled: "The minute we got in there were fins surrounding the dinghy. They were everywhere."

The sharks, with the smell of Meg's blood fresh in their nostrils, tried several terrifying tactics to topple the boat to feast on their prey.

One shark grabbed the rope on the front of the boat and pulled it along the water to try and get a crew member to fall off.

Others started ramming the dinghy to try and topple their prey.

Dehydrated and delusional

Although the crew managed to hang on for several days, they were without food or water and became severely dehydrated.

Pus and blood from Meg's open wounds were leaking around the boat, along with urine - causing all five to develop infections.

Meg grew weaker by the hour after her infected leg caused her to develop blood poisoning, which spread throughout her body.

Three days into their epic battle for survival, dehydration caused the group to become delirious.

Their thirst was so strong, John and Mark drank salt water from the sea - which is known to speed up the dehydration process and cause the kidneys to shut down.

And hallucinations got the better of John when he imagined he had seen land. Powerless to stop him, the rest of the crew watched hopelessly as he jumped from the boat, straight into the shark infested water.

Deborah recalled: "All of a sudden we just hear this shrill scream. Blood-curdling. Then it was over, silence. There was no crying, nothing. There was no doubt what got him. The sharks got him."

It wasn't long before hallucinations set in for Mark, too.

Shortly after John died, Mark mumbled something about going to the shop to buy cigarettes. Deborah and Brad, who were still somewhat lucid, tried to keep him on the boat, but their attempts were futile.

Mark plunged himself into the water where he was immediately pulled under the water by sharks.

Deborah described his body being thrashed against the bottom of the boat as the predators tore him apart.

“It was by far the most horrifying moment of my entire life,” she said.

Knowing Meg would be next to perish, Deborah and Brad tried to go to sleep so they wouldn't have to watch her sticky end.

"We were sitting there watching Meg die and it was tragic," she said.

When the pair woke up the following morning, Meg had died. Her body laid in the “fetid mess of seaweed, blood, urine and pus” on the bottom of the boat.

Desperate to survive, Brad considered eating Meg's body, but Deborah reminded him her flesh had been too infected.

The pair instead decided to throw her off the boat.

They took off her clothes and jewellery, vowing to give it to her family when they reached land, and said a prayer before pushing her body into the sea.

"It was such a sad moment because we laid her naked body on the side of the raft and then we decided we couldn’t just roll her off. She needed some sort of funeral," Deborah said.

After Meg went in the water, Brad and Deborah tried to sleep again so they wouldn't hear the sharks tear into her.

Safety at last

The only remaining crew members on the boat, Deborah and Brad stuck together as best they could.

But while Brad was trying to clean the bodily fluids from the boat, he fell into the water. Deborah panicked as he scrambled to get back in.

She said: "I felt like I’d just doomed Brad to death," knowing he'd be next to die if the sharks came back.

Luckily, Brad managed to pull himself back into the boat. Shortly after the scare, the cavalry arrived in the form of a Russian cargo ship.

Brad and Deborah used all their strength to wave at the crew - who thankfully waved back. They were saved.

The crew members threw a life ring into the water and dragged the pair to safety

"I didn’t care who these people were or where we were going," said Deborah. "I was there and Brad was there and we were alive."

After their rescue, Deborah took up a career as a motivational speaker. She wrote a book about her experience: Albatross: The True Story of a Woman's Survival at Sea, in 1994.

Do you have a real life story to share? Email [email protected]

Brad still works as a mariner in Massachusetts on the east coast of the USA. However, he admits the trauma of the ordeal has stayed with him.

He said: "It’s not something that you turn off once you’ve been through it.

"You keep living in survival mode. I don’t know if you’re shell-shocked but it’s impossible to just turn it off and live the way you did before."

Sadly, Deborah passed away at her home in Mexico at the age of 54 in 2012. Her cause of death is unknown.

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• Entertainment

Terrifying true story behind Josh Duhamel’s new Shark Week movie

A-lister Josh Duhamel’s latest movie is a terrifying stranded-at-sea-surrounded-by-sharks story, but what makes it scarier is it actually happened.

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A luxury yacht and a six-day voyage on the high seas turns into a bloody nightmare for this group in a true story that plays out in Josh Duhamel’s latest Hollywood movie.

Capsized: Blood in the Water is now available to stream on Foxtel Now and is the first scripted feature film made just for Shark Week. It’s about five people who are stranded at sea surrounded by dozens of sharks for days. Only two live to tell the tale.

What makes the movie even more terrifying is that it’s based on a true story.

In 1982, a group set out from Maine in perfect sailing conditions en route to Florida. But two days into the journey, their 18-metre yacht Trashman capsized during a violent storm, throwing 24-year-old sailor Deborah Scaling-Kiley and her friends into the ocean.

One of her crewmates, Meg Mooney, slashed her leg in the struggle – making them a magnet for great white sharks who began circling the group.

They managed to clamber onto a life raft, but within hours “hundreds” of killer sharks began circling and even ramming the boat in an attempt to dislodge the terrified crew members.

CALM BEFORE THE STORM

The crew, which included Deborah, Meg, Captain John Lippoth (Duhamel), yachtsman Brad and Englishman Mark Adams, were to sail up the East Coast of America and drop the yacht off to its new owner in Florida.

Deborah was looking forward to the six-day, 2100km trip.

“The weather was beautiful, the boat was fun to steer,” she said to The Sun . “It doesn’t get much better than that.”

But on the second day, the weather took a turn for the worse, and as night fell, the yacht hit a terrifying tropical storm.

As nine-metre waves crashed against the mast and 110km/h winds battered the sails, the captain, who had been drinking heavily, fell asleep at the helm.

Deborah was woken in the middle of the night by panicked voices and found icy water pouring into the cabin.

The boat was capsizing and Meg fell against some rigging, badly cutting her leg.

The panicked crew jumped into the water, and Mark inflated a 3.4 metre dinghy.

The crew clambered in, but before he could join them, Mark felt something nudge his leg.

At that moment, to Deborah’s horror, she saw hundreds of sharks in the water around them, swimming dangerously close to their boat.

“The minute we got in there were fins surrounding the dinghy,” she said. “They were everywhere.”

The killer creatures had been drawn to the blood from Meg’s open wound and had come from miles.

One of the sharks grabbed the rope on the front of the boat and started pulling it along in the water – taking the crew on a terrifying joy ride.

When that failed the sharks began to ram the tiny boat in a bid to topple them out.

Dive into Shark Week on Discovery Channel. Stream Foxtel Now

ONLY THE BEGINNING

Hours turned into days and the starving crew became severely dehydrated.

With urine and the blood and pus from Meg’s wounds sloshing about on the floor of the dinghy, the crew started developing infections all over their bodies.

Taking a turn for the worse, Meg’s wounded leg became infected and blood poisoning began spreading through her body.

By day three, with infection and dehydration rife, the crew began to get delirious as their brains were starved of water.

Desperate, John and Mark started to drink salt water – which accelerates dehydration and causes kidneys to shut down.

Before long John was hallucinating. He suddenly thought he saw land and jumped off the side of the boat.

“All of a sudden we just hear this shrill scream. Blood-curdling. Then it was over, silence. There was no crying, nothing. There was no doubt what got him. The sharks got him,” Deborah recalled.

With Mark also delusional and Meg weak from her blood poisoning, Brad and Deborah were the only ones left with their wits about them and made a pledge to look out for each other.

Shortly after John’s death, Mark – who had been hallucinating for hours – mumbled that he was going to the convenience store to buy beer and cigarettes.

Despite Deborah and Brad’s attempts to bring him back to reality, he too plunged into the shark-infested waters.

The sharks instantly moved in, banging against the bottom of the boat and spinning it round as they tore into Mark’s flailing body in a frenzied attack.

“It was by far the most horrifying moment of my entire life,” Deborah said.

DYING A SLOW DEATH

That night, as the infection in her blood took hold, Meg began having severe hallucinations.

“We were sitting there watching Meg die and it was tragic,” Deborah said.

When the remaining pair woke in the morning, she was dead – lying in the “fetid mess of seaweed, blood, urine and pus” on the floor.

Brad admits he considered eating her body in a desperate bid for survival, but Deborah warned him Meg was too infected and insisted they had to throw her off the boat.

They took off her shirt and jewellery to give to her family on their return.

“It was such a sad moment because we laid her naked body on the side of the raft and then we decided we couldn’t just roll her off. She needed some sort of funeral,” Deborah said.

“So we said the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23 and we gently pushed her body overboard.

“Then we decided to go back to sleep so when the sharks attacked we wouldn’t have to see it.”

In another terrifying moment, Brad fell into the water while trying to clean the boat out, and Deborah broke down as he struggled to find the strength to get him back in.

“I felt like I’d just doomed Brad to death,” she said. “If the sharks came back, he was dead.”

THEIR MIRACLE RESCUE

With a surge of adrenaline Brad managed to pull himself in, and moments later desperation turned to joy as he spotted a Russian cargo ship on the horizon.

The pair waved frantically at the crew – who waved back – and soon they had thrown a life ring into the water centimetres from the boat.

The pair jumped into the water and were winched on-board the ship.

“I didn’t care who these people were or where we were going,” Deborah said. “I was there and Brad was there and we were alive.”

Deborah went on to become a motivational speaker and wrote a book – Albatross: The True Story of a Woman’s Survival at Sea – in 1994.

She sadly died in 2012 at her home in Mexico, at the age of 54, from unknown causes.

Brad continues to work as a mariner in Massachusetts but says the 1982 ordeal has left him a changed man.

“It’s not something that you turn off once you’ve been through it,” he said. “You keep living in survival mode. I don’t know if you’re shell-shocked, but it’s impossible to just turn it off and live the way you did before.”

Capsized: Blood in the Water is now streaming on Foxtel Now

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission

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Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi will soon be back on the big screen, this time portraying one of literature’s greatest tormented love stories.

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Capsized: Blood in the Water

Discovery Channel’s first ever scripted film for Shark Week. Based on the harrowing true story of an October 1982 shark encounter. After a yacht bound for Florida capsizes during an unexpected storm, its crew is left to drift for days in the chilling waters of the Atlantic where they become prey to a group of tiger sharks. With the hope of rescue dwindling, the crew must do everything in their power to survive as the sharks continue to hunt them. Starring Josh Duhamel and Tyler Blackburn.

Hailey Noonan

Great Survival Stories: Shipwreck, Sharks, and Deborah Kiley

Deborah Kiley’s gruesome, five-day ordeal in 1982 began as a routine sailing trip in the Atlantic. Soon, she would be forced to feed her friend to sharks and watch helplessly as two others leaped to their deaths.

Deborah Kiley watched helplessly as sharks ate two of her friends.

Kiley was a confident sailor. By the age of 23, she already had years of experience crewing yachts. She earned her big break sailing in the 70,000km Whitbread Round the World Race (now The Ocean Race). In 1981, Kiley became the first American woman to complete the event. Her sailing future appeared prosperous.

The following year, she was hired to crew an 18m yacht called Trashman , during its transfer from Maine to new owners in Florida.

When the crew — Kiley, Captain John Lippoth, his girlfriend Meg Mooney, and sailors Brad Cavanagh and Mark Adams — set off from Maine for their six-day, 2,000km trip, conditions were perfect.

“The weather was beautiful, the boat was fun to steer,” recalled Kiley years later.

On their second day, they began to run into trouble.

A storm, and a drunken captain

A violent storm hit Trashman with 110kph winds and 10m waves. A heavily intoxicated Lippoth lay asleep at the wheel when the voices of her terrified crewmates woke Kelly up. Cold water gushed into the cabin. In a matter of moments, their situation turned desperate.

The yacht, now off the coast of North Carolina, was sinking quickly. The crew’s only option was to throw themselves into the ocean.

Adams managed to inflate a small rubber dinghy. As the crew clambered into their life raft, Adam felt a nudge on his leg. They were completely surrounded by great white sharks.

“The minute we got in, there were fins everywhere in the water. I don’t mean like two or three, I mean 10, 20. They were everywhere,” said Kiley.

They realized that Mooney had gashed her leg severely during the capsize. The smell of blood drew sharks to the helpless crew. One shark clutched the dinghy’s bowline in its mouth, pulling the terrified crew along. When that didn’t tip them into the ocean, the sharks started nudging the boat.

Kiley resolved to stay focused. She covered her body in seaweed for warmth. To stay in control, she recited prayers.

Mooney was in agonizing pain. Her leg quickly became infected, and blood poisoning set in. By day three, everyone was severely dehydrated.

Out of desperation, a delirious Lippoth and Adams began drinking from the ocean. Toxic saltwater accelerates dehydration and shuts down the kidneys. In different circumstances, both men would have understood this.

Lippoth was the first to go. Convinced that he saw land, he suddenly threw himself overboard.

A blood-curdling scream and the captain was gone

“All of a sudden, we just heard this shrill scream. Blood-curdling,” said Kiley. “Then it was over, silence. There was no crying, nothing. There was no doubt what got him. The sharks got him.”

Shortly after, Adams suffered a similar fate. He babbled incoherently of heading to the shop to buy beer and cigarettes before hurling himself over the side of the dinghy.

“It was by far the most horrifying moment of my entire life,” Kiley said as she watched sharks eat him too. In their frenzied attack on Adam, the sharks butted the raft, tipping it precariously. Somehow, it managed to stay upright.

Hallucinations weren’t yet over for the surviving crew members.

Mooney succumbed next from the blood poisoning. She was dying before Kiley and Cavanagh’s eyes, but there was nothing they could do to help. When the pair woke in the morning, she was dead.

Starving and dehydrated, Cavanagh considered eating Mooney’s remains. Focused, Kiley talked him out of it.

A third perishes

Mooney’s infection had wept all over the dinghy’s floor, which was now sodden with a mess of seaweed, blood, and pus. Feeling that they were risking infection themselves, the two survivors threw their friend overboard.

First, they undressed her, saving clothes and jewelry to give to her family, if they survived. Then they recited a prayer and pushed her over the edge of the boat.

‘We tried to sleep so we wouldn’t see Meg being eaten by sharks,” said Kiley.

The pair had now been at sea for five days. Three of their friends had died. They tried to clean the boat from Mooney’s infection. While doing so, Cavanagh slipped and fell into the shark-infested waters.

A desperate Kiley used all her strength to try to pull Cavanagh back into the boat, but she was just too weak. Then the pair spotted a cargo ship on the horizon, and a surge of adrenalin came over Cavanagh. Summoning the last of his strength, he managed to haul himself back on board.

Deliverance

When the pair were picked up 140km south of Cape Lookout, they’d drifted almost 150km off course.

Kiley and Cavanagh’s five days in the Atlantic Ocean shifted the course of their lives irreversibly. It took years for Kiley to stop hearing her friends’ screams as the sharks ate them. Returning to her previous life no longer made sense.

Kiley became a motivational speaker and penned two books about her ordeal. Albatross: The True Story of a Woman’s Survival at Sea (1994) and No Victims Only Survivors: Ten Lessons for Survival (2006) .

She married twice and had two children. In a cruel irony, her son drowned at the age of 23. When Kiley was 54, she herself died at home in Mexico. The cause of death was not made public.

Before she died, Kiley and Cavanagh featured in a 2005 Discovery Channel episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive . In the documentary, Cavanagh admitted, “It’s not something you just turn off when it’s over. You keep living in that survival mode. I don’t know if you’re shellshocked or what…but it’s impossible to just go back to being the way you were before.”

Although his outlook on life changed, Cavanagh returned to the water as a professional yachtsman.

Brad Cavanagh, years later.

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Josh Duhamel & the ‘Capsized: Blood in the Water’ Cast on Shark Week’s First Movie

For a guy who knows he’s about to get attacked by a shark, Josh Duhamel couldn’t be in better spirits. “I’m going in the pool!” the swim trunk–clad actor announces to no one in particular this May morning in the Dominican Republic. That “pool” is actually a 2.7 million-gallon water tank at the island’s Pinewood Studios, where he’s filming the Discovery movie Capsized: Blood in the Water .

For hours under the scorching sun, crew members mill about on metal catwalks constructed over the expansive tank while, down below in chest-high water, Duhamel gamely rehearses and then shoots his close encounter. (For the record, there’s no actual shark — it will be added in later digitally.) He screams. He splashes. He flails. And he kids around too. After one take, Duhamel cries out, “It got my wiener!”

Jokes aside, Capsized is serious business for Discovery. For the first time ever, the network is diving into a new genre for Shark Week: scripted film. (Those fake megalodon documentaries don’t count.) Since its debut in 1988, the popular annual event, which last year drew 34.9 million viewers, has largely relied on reality specials and informational programming to entertain and educate viewers about the ocean dwellers.

Paul de Gelder on His Shark Week Adventure With Ronda Rousey

But following the summer staple’s 30th anniversary, “there was a lot of discussion around, ‘How do we build on this success?'” says Howard Swartz, Discovery’s senior vice president of production and development. “So we decided to try something out of the box.”

Capsized , based on actual events, recounts the ordeal of captain John Lippoth (Duhamel), his girlfriend, Meg Mooney (Rebekah Graf), and three other young sailors — tough Deborah Scaling (Beau Garrett), hard-drinking Mark Adams (Josh Close) and good-natured Brad Cavanaugh ( Tyler Blackburn ). In 1982, a billionaire hired the group to sail his 58-foot yacht Trashman down the East Coast to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Somewhere near North Carolina, a raging storm destroyed the vessel, leaving the quintet clinging to life in an 11-foot dinghy.

Capsized: Blood in the Water

“They were lost at sea with no food, no water, in the blazing sun and then freezing at night,” a tired and sore Duhamel explains during a much-needed break. For five excruciating days, until a Russian freighter came across the survivors, “they were barely hanging on,” Duhamel continues.

Oh, and sharks were circling them too. But unlike popcorn movies such as Jaws and The Meg , Capsized doesn’t “demonize” the creatures, insists Swartz: “One thing we’ve done really well over 30 years is celebrate sharks and try to get away from the perception of them as these mindless killing machines.” Duhamel agrees. “Sharks are just doing their thing,” he says. “It’s not personal. It’s like, ‘You’re there. I’m going to eat you.'”

All the Shark Week 2018 Celebrity Appearances, Ranked

And they did. Like Lippoth, Adams also tangled with one of the predators — and the film’s violent dramatization freaked out the actor playing him. “That was scary, man,” recalls Close, admitting the shoot has been draining. “They had a fake shark on my leg, and if you look down, it looks real. It’s got its eyes shut and it’s chomping into your leg. I’m holding my breath, then screaming.”

Thank the stunt crew for that authenticity. In scuba gear beneath the surface, they would attach ropes to the actors and jerk them every which way, catching them off guard. “I tell the actor, ‘OK, I’m going to pull you when you’re there,’ but then I pull a little bit earlier,” reveals stunt coordinator Dickey Beer — who’s worked with everyone from Harrison Ford to Angelina Jolie — with a smile. “You must have that surprised look on somebody’s face.”

Underwater. Double tagged tiger shark swimming toward camera

In fact, the whole production looks convincing, from the attack scenes to the ominous image of shark fins slicing swiftly through the surface of the water. (Beer’s stuntwoman daughter Amy wore model fins to double as a predator.) Even costars who didn’t swim with the fishes got chills. “I feel like I’m able to separate reality from fantasy,” says Blackburn. “But there are moments when you’re like, ‘Oh s–t!'”

Discovery is banking on viewers having that same breathless, edge-of-your-seat reaction to Capsized . “It has so many elements that resonate with our audience,” says Swartz. “It’s a true story of survival in shark-infested waters.”

Capsized: Blood in the Water , Movie Premiere, Wednesday, July 31, 9/8c, Discovery

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• Soul Surfer
• Sony Pictures Releasing
• Universal Pictures
• Lions Gate Films

There's no shortage of bad shark movies out there, but some of the scariest films about sharks are based on true stories. For example, the seminal 1975 classic Jaws took its source material from a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey in 1916. Local mayors attempted to bury the story, much like Mayor Larry Vaughn does in the film. Likewise, the film Open Water is based on the story of a couple who went missing after a ship accidentally left them at a shark-infested dive site. Even the unbelievable Deep Blue Sea has some inspiration from true events.

The plots of the films below may sound outlandish, but some of the most inconceivable stories are unsettlingly close to their source material. Read through each real tale that inspired splashy shark cinema and see how fact and fiction come together.

'Jaws' - The Jersey Shore Shark Attacks Of 1916 Killed Four

The Movie Premise: The iconic 1975 film Jaws tells the story of a man-eating white shark that terrorizes the sleepy beach town of Amity Island. As the death toll mounts, police chief Martin Brody teams up with marine biologist Matt Hooper and shark hunter Quint. The three men risk their lives as they venture into the water to fight the shark head-on.

The True Story: In July 1916, four people died as a result of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey. As in Jaws , local mayors attempted to downplay the attacks for fear of businesses losing tourist revenue. However, beachgoers began panicking after a body washed up on a New Jersey beach, leading to “shark hunts” led by residents with guns and pitchforks.

The shark in question was a young, nine-foot-long great white shark. It was eventually killed by a man after it attacked his boat. According to the Matawan Historical Society in New Jersey:

A large shark was caught in Raritan Bay and put on display to over 3,000 people at ten cents each.

'Soul Surfer' - A 2003 Shark Attack Took Bethany Hamilton's Arm

The Movie Premise: 13-year-old Bethany Hamilton is surfing with a friend when she's unexpectedly attacked by a tiger shark. In an instant, the shark bites off Bethany's left arm at the shoulder and she loses 60% of her blood by the time she gets to the hospital.

Following a long recovery and setbacks in her surfing career, Bethany finds a way to continue her passion and inspire others.

The True Story: Like in the movie, Bethany Hamilton was 13 when her life changed forever following a shark attack in 2003. She wrote a memoir the following year titled Soul Surfer and continued to compete in surfing competitions and refused any special treatment. 

Hamilton said in an interview :

I’m often so driven because I’m constantly greeted by people who have had their lives changed by hearing my story, and to me, that’s really motivating in a sense of I’m doing more than just living my life. I’m sharing it, and helping others along the way.

'Open Water' - Scuba Divers Tom And Eileen Lonergan Disappeared In 1998

The Movie Premise: Daniel Kintner and Susan Watkins decide to rekindle their relationship and go on a group scuba dive in Open Water . After the couple ventures away from the group, they're accidentally left behind at the dive site. Kintner and Watkins first believe that their ship will come back, but as sharks begin to circle them, they realize that no one is coming to their rescue. 

The True Story: The movie plot is based on a real incident, although names of those involved were changed. On January 25, 1998, Tom and Eileen Lonergan participated in a 26-person dive at the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. The couple was left behind by their ship, the Outer Edge, and the crew only realized their error after they returned the next day. 

Tom and Eileen were never seen again, but Eileen's empty dive suit was found floating in the water months later. A dive slate was also found with the following message written by Tom : 

[Mo]nday Jan 26; 1998 08am. To anyone [who] can help us: We have been abandoned on A[gin]court Reef by MV Outer Edge 25 Jan 98 3pm. Please help us [come] to rescue us before we die. Help!!!

'USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage' - Only 316 Men Survived A Torpedoed Navy Ship

• Saban Films

The Movie Premise: USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage recounts how the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese Navy in the Philippine Sea on July 30, 1945. 300 crew members died in the sinking of the ship, which had been carrying supplies for the atomic bomb.

The survivors, totaling 316, spent five days adrift at sea in shark-infested waters. The Indianapolis 's captain, Charles McVay, was court marshaled despite no wrongdoing on his part, leading to him taking his own life.

The True Story: The USS Indianapolis sank in a mere 12 minutes, and the crew had no time to signal for help. The crew totaled nearly 1,200 and about 900 survived the first phase of the sinking. That number dwindled as they drifted on the water awaiting rescue - some were eaten by sharks, while others died from dehydration, saltwater poisoning, or infected wounds.

Captain McVay was said to be a scapegoat for the disaster after being found guilty of negligence during the attack on the ship. McVay took his own life in 1968, and Congress, along with President Bill Clinton, exonerated him in 2000 of any wrongdoing in the sinking of the Indianapolis . 

'Capsized: Blood in the Water' - A Yacht Capsized In 1982 In Shark-Infested Waters

• Discovery Channel Films

The Movie Premise: Capsized: Blood in the Water was the first scripted film made for Discovery Channel's beloved Shark Week. It depicts a five-member crew of a yacht who find themselves in a severe storm that destroys their ship. They're left clinging to life on an 11-foot dinghy as sharks circle around them.

Although some fans felt that the film demonized sharks, Howard Swartz, a VP at Discovery Channel, insisted :

One thing we've done really well over 30 years is celebrate sharks and try to get away from the perception of them as these mindless killing machines.

The True Story: The film is based on real events that occurred in October 1982. A billionaire hired a small crew of five people to sail his 58-foot yacht, Trashman , from New England to Fort Lauderdale, but the ship was destroyed in a storm off the coast of North Carolina.

It took five days for rescuers to find the crew. By that time, only Deborah Scaling and Brad Cavanaugh were still alive. Meg Mooney had died from injuries she sustained during the sinking, and John Lippoth and Mark Adams had been killed by sharks after they swam away from the lifeboat. 

'Two Came Back' - Deborah Scaling Kiley Wrote About Her Time Lost At Sea

The Movie Premise: The 1997 ABC movie Two Came Back tells the story of 21-year-old Susan Clarkson, who has become weary of her years of travel. She wants to settle down with her mother, but decides to join the crew of a yacht traveling from San Diego to Vancouver to earn some easy money. Tragedy strikes as a storm destroys the yacht and leaves Clarkson and her four shipmates stranded in the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by sharks.

The True Story: Two Came Back is based on the survival story of Deborah Scaling Kiley as told in her 1994 memoir, Albatross . Kiley survived a 1982 yacht sinking that left her and a small crew stranded in the Atlantic Ocean for five days. Only Kiley and one other crew member survived.

Kiley later said that she survived by staying calm and accepting the situation. She explained in an interview , "Surviving is about keeping your wits when everything is falling apart."

'Deep Blue Sea' - A 'Horrific' Shark Attack Near The Screenwriter's Home Inspired The Story

• Warner Bros.

The Movie Premise: Doctors Susan McCallister and Jim Whitlock are studying the brain activity of mako sharks when the sharks begin to attack. As the sharks become more vicious and begin killing members of the research team, McCallister admits that she and Whitlock genetically engineered the brains of the sharks, which increased their intelligence and deadliness. It's left up to the research team to stop the souped-up sharks before they escape and endanger others. 

The True Story: Deep Blue Sea 's screenwriter, Duncan Kennedy, was plagued by nightmares during his childhood after a shark attack where he grew up in Queensland, Australia. The attack had occurred near his family's seaside home, and Kennedy had witnessed the body wash up on shore: “There was really not much left of him,” Kennedy later said in an interview.

The result of the shark attack for Kennedy was a recurring nightmare about being trapped in a corridor with mind-reading sharks. Although he eventually outgrew the dreams, they became the inspiration for Deep Blue Sea .

'The Reef' - A 15-Foot Shark Killed Two People On A Shrimp Boat

• Lightning Entertainment

The Movie Premise: In The Reef , Luke travels with four friends on a yacht he's delivering to a client in Indonesia. However, a storm capsizes the yacht and leaves the five 20-somethings at odds with one another. Warren stays on the capsized ship, while Luke convinces the others to swim with him to Easter Island. Things go from bad to worse when Luke's friend Matt is eaten by a great white shark, and the survivors realize it's only a matter of time before they become the next victims.

The True Story: In 1983, Dennis Patrick Murphy, Ray Boundy, and Linda Anne Horton were on a shrimp trawler that sank in the Coral Sea off the northeast coast of Australia.

As the group swam towards land, Boundy and Horton heard Murphy scream , "He's got my leg, the b*stard's got my leg!" Murphy was killed by a tiger shark, which later took Horton as well. Ultimately, Boundy was the lone survivor , having spent 36 hours adrift before he was rescued.

'Kon-Tiki' - Thor Heyerdahl Journeyed By Raft Across The Pacific Ocean In 1947

• The Weinstein Company

The Movie Premise: The 2012 film Kon-Tiki is a dramatic retelling of explorer Thor Heyerdahl's journey aboard a balsawood raft that traveled from Peru to Polynesia. Heyerdahl takes five men with him on an expedition that he hoped would prove that people from South America were the first to colonize Polynesia. The 4,300-mile, three-month trip proves treacherous, especially when the crew must fend off deadly sharks.

The True Story: In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl put out an ad looking for crew members for an expedition. It read :

Am going to cross the Pacific on a wooden raft to support a theory that the South Sea islands were peopled from Peru. Will you come? Reply at once.

The 40-square foot ship was named Kon-Tiki, after the Incan sun god. The crew had a 16mm camera to document their voyage and five radios to give daily broadcasts, which captured the attention of the world.

As for sharks, they were present, but not as much of a threat as they are in the film. The crew occasionally baited sharks with fish to help pass the time; there was no serious danger of attack.

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Capsized: blood in the water.

Directed by Roel Reiné

Based on the harrowing true story of an October 1982 shark encounter. After a yacht bound for Florida capsizes during an unexpected storm, its crew is left to drift for days in the chilling waters of the Atlantic where they become prey to a group of tiger sharks. With the hope of rescue dwindling, the crew must do everything in their power to survive as the sharks continue to hunt them.

Josh Duhamel Tyler Blackburn Rebekah Graf Beau Garrett Joshua Close Virginia Del Sol Mike Marunde Dendrie Taylor Ruairi Rhodes

Director Director

Producer producer.

Stephen David

Writers Writers

Stephen David Tim W. Kelly Jonathan Soule

Executive Producer Exec. Producer

Tim W. Kelly

Stephen David Entertainment

Releases by Date

31 jul 2019, releases by country.

83 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by corey👻 ★½

josh duhamel will do anything for a paycheck

Review by olivia ★★★ 2

this left me feeling really sad. this was a torturous 2 hours of anxiety and upheaval. i'm not exactly sure if i'm glad i watched it, but in the service of feeding (for lack of a better term) my addiction to shark movies, here i am. this really affected me to know it was a true story, as well. shark week served its purpose.

(2019 - ranked )

Review by Monster_Groupie ★★★ 2

The following is based on a true Story of survival in Shark-infested Waters. Viewer Discretion is adviced... dieser Text kam ohne Scheiß alle 15 Minuten xD.

"Shut up, Mark!" Yes(!), es gibt sie immer noch! Diese Deppen, die nach wie vor Bock haben, Survival-Thriller auf offener See mit dem Schwerpunkt "Hai" zu drehen und dabei rein gar nichts anders machen, als die tapferen Seebären vor ihnen! Mir fallen tatsächlich nicht viele Unterschiede zu bekannteren Genre-Vertretern wie "Open Water" oder "The Reef" ein, außer das diese halt meine Jugend gerockt haben und der hier als netter Snack für zwischendurch fungiert!

Das ganze basiert leider auf wahren Begebenheiten, was Filmen wie diesen meistens zugute kommt, da es den "Realismus"-Level ordentlich anhebt und…

Review by Jack Robinson👽 ★★½

2019 Ranked

This was an interesting look into the survival of these characters but overall not that exciting of a film. For the most part it’s just the drama that occurs amongst the boat crew and the acting is not very good I often found myself laughing at how bad their reactions were to the shark attacks or being injured. Not really much shark attacks occur in this film and the dialogue was not much to be desired so most of the time I felt myself feeling unsatisfied.

Review by Lebowskidoo 🇨🇦 🎬 🍿 ★★★★

Based on a true story from 1982 makes this Discovery Channel Shark Week movie a little more harrowing than your usual made-for-TV shark movie.

Plenty of tension during the shark scenes and some actual actors, it's similar to so many other movies but well done and worth your time.

Review by Emma ½

- guy 1 tries to use a belt on girl 1 to help her wound - guy 2 gets mad and throws the belt overboard - guy 1 gets mad at guy 2 because he thinks girl 1 is gonna die now

- meanwhile guy 3 is wearing a belt the entire movie...

Review by Film_Sammlung ★★½ 5

Lief damals auf dem Discovery Channel in Form der "Shark Weeks" und basiert auf einer wahren Geschichte, die 1982 geschah.

Eine Gruppe von Leuten beschließt, Urlaub auf einer Yacht zu machen und von Florida aus los zu segeln. Als aber ein plötzlicher Sturm alles auseinandernimmt, befindet sich das Trüppchen auf einem Schlauchboot und muss den Atlantik überleben. Obendrauf kommt noch eine Truppe von Tiger Haien, die es auf die Leute abgesehen hat.

Besetzungstechnisch kannte ich nur Josh Duhamel der natürlich nicht ohne Grund als letztes in den Credits steht. Im Großen und Ganzen machen die Darsteller aber durchgehend eine gute Rolle.

Allgemein sieht der Streifen recht hochwertig aus und sowohl der Sturm als auch die Haie sind mit sehr ordentlichem…

Review by kiri ★★

The amount of tomfoolery that I will sit through because I think Tyler Blackburn is pretty and want that elegant power bottom to be my FRIEND and use some of his insta ad revenue to pay off my STUDENT LOANS is s t a g g e r i n g. 

Anyway, this was fine for what it was.

Review by becca

can shark week go back to being about education instead of entertainment?

Review by Ariane Bélisle ★½

To carry this Shark Week on, I picked Capsized: Blood in the Water , a TV Movie that caught my attention mainly because of Josh Duhamel ’s and Tyler Blackburn ’s pretty faces. Unfortunately, the shark action is almost non-existant and the story itself is pretty boring. Even if it’s based on a true story, I’m disappointed. At least, Shark Bait was entertaining.

Shark Week Ranked

Review by Paige ★★★

Definitely outdid my expectations and was surprisingly good. A very inspirational true story. It’s a shark/survival movie so it’s not some artsy fartsy film that’s gonna be nominated for awards any time soon but if you’re a shark flick fan or like survival films this is defo a hidden gem.

Review by Simon Lang ★★★

This film marks Shark Week's first original movie and is based on a true story of a sailing crew stuck adrift for days in shark-infested waters. We've seen the story many times before (OPEN WATER, THE REEF, CAGE DIVE), however, the movie has decent acting and a solid direction by DTV specialist Roel Reiné (DEATH RACE 2 & 3). This is worth a watch if you are, like myself, a sucker for survival thrillers and everything involving sharks.

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Capsized: Blood in the Water

Based on a true story, in October 1982 a yacht bound for Florida capsizes during an unexpected storm, leaving the crew to drift for days in the cold, shark-infested waters. They must do everything in their power to survive as the sharks hunt them.

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