In 2025, Craig Wood sailed solo and non-stop from Puerto Vallarta in Mexico to Hiroshima in Japan, becoming the first triple amputee to sail alone across the Pacific. The crossing covered 7,506 nautical miles and took ninety days, and we’ve spent the last few months turning it into a documentary that is now heading to its premiere.
Craig’s story starts long before the voyage. In 2009, aged 18, he was serving as a rifleman in the British Army when he lost both legs and his left hand in an explosion in Afghanistan. Being asked to tell the story of what he’s achieved since has been one of the proudest projects we’ve worked on.
The biggest challenge was obvious from the start. Nobody could follow Craig across an ocean with a camera, so we planned the production in three stages from our base in Taunton. First, our crew travelled out to Mexico to film Craig getting his 41ft catamaran ready. We covered the rigging, the equipment checks and how he was feeling before he left, and used drone footage and multiple cameras to show the scale of what he was taking on.
Once he set off, Craig became the crew. Before he left, we trained him to frame and steady his shots, keep the kit safe from saltwater and record his thoughts as things happened. The footage he brought back shows the Pacific in a way no outside camera could, because he was the only person out there.
We then flew to Japan to film his arrival in Hiroshima as it happened, with no scripted direction. That included his celebration on the dock and the moment his parents greeted him at the finish. As Craig told Practical Boat Owner, “I was exhausted but so proud to complete an expedition that many thought impossible.”
Bringing our own footage together with material filmed in the middle of the ocean took careful work in the edit. Colour grading and sound balancing helped the three locations sit together as one film, which follows the tension of the crossing through to his arrival.
The voyage has raised more than £65,000 for Blesma and Turn to Starboard, the charities that helped Craig rebuild his life, and we hope the film helps his story reach even more people.
We plan, film and deliver documentaries and video production from Taunton, across Somerset, the UK and overseas. If you have a story that’s hard to reach, get in touch and we’ll tell you straight how we’d film it.
