way late to this post but I'm watching the film now and it's pissing me off.

Redford is absolutely amazing- but the story is damned near impossible to believe.

A sailor sailing across the Pacific- Fine. A sailor doing that but not smart enough to reduce sail way ahead of time? No way.

Waits way too long to deploy a storm jib or trysail and also doesn't even bother to heave to? Come on.

Sailing across the Pacific and has a chart plotter and radio- but doesn't have a spare GPS/sat phone/EPIRB/PLB/whatever? Doesn't bother to stick a spare handheld radio in a Pelican case so he has something to call for help with as he gets closer? Sure.

Has a sextant, is sailing across the Pacific, and never bothers to learn to use it? What the hell is he doing all day long? I get bored on a short passage- and there is only so much maintenance you can do.

Somehow a keelboat that's flooded to the portlights is still afloat??? Maybe a catamaran- but not a keelboat.

He gets in the life raft- only to have it flip? They have ballast tanks and little to no windage. It's going to ride the waves like a cork- not roll and tumble.

He gets in the life raft only to find out the cap came off his potable water container ... SO???? You can mix your potable water with seawater at a ratio of 3:1 or even 2:1 and still drink it while it provides hydration. Are you trying to tell me that a sealed container with a small 1/8" hole managed to exchange enough water in that time to make it undrinkable?

Better yet- you're doing serious off shore sailing and don't have some method of desalination????

The whole movie is just one sailing mistake after another and it makes it very hard to watch. Redford is perfect- just absolutely amazing- but the story might as well have involved space aliens for all the sense it made.

If you're going that far off shore- you have a sat phone in a pelican case with AA batteries, a PLB, an EPIRB, or all of the above. Your ship gets holed- you press the button and people are on their way to rescue you.