Shortly after we completed our circumnavigation, we got a call from a Hollywood production company. The person calling was the assistant to the producer and an avid boater. He had followed our website and thought that our travel stories were fascinating, so he had talked his boss into considering us for a reality TV show. As the assistant explained to us, the new trend in reality TV is not to put people in crazy contrived situations, but to find people who are doing interesting things and simply follow them around. Apparently, the main reason for this trend is it keeps production costs incredibly low. The big question he had for us was: were we up for it? Of course, we said yes.

Knowing that there are a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through to get something like this going, particularly in the current recession, we didn’t let ourselves get too excited about it. We only told a handful of people.

Over the last couple of months, we have gone through a several sets of interviews (including some psychological testing), and contract negotiations. We were grilled about how prepared we were for emergency situations, physically, psychologically and emotionally. We recounted our scary stories about the sunken sailboat, the Java Sea passage, and Stromboli. After each meeting, we expected a call saying “thanks, but no thanks,” but instead got calls saying “Let’s schedule the next meeting.”

When the formalities were completed, it was time to work on a pilot episode. The pilot is basically a test episode that they send to the network executives to see if they want to pick the show up. Lots of pilots are made every year, but only a handful actually get accepted. If the pilot is accepted, then the production company will start working on the rest of the episodes. In the interviewing process, we had talked with the production team about what would be a good setup for the pilot, and we all agreed to pretend we were about to leave for another circumnavigation. We could go through some preparation and then the start of the trip.

Last Monday morning, four people came down–the executive producer/host, his assistant (the one who “discovered” us), a camera person, and a lighting/sound person. They spent the day getting preliminary information, scouting out shooting locations and setting up the schedule for the week.

On Tuesday, the recording started. The whole entourage followed us around with a camera as we went to various stores to stock up on supplies. The camera guy was taking lots of video, but also some still shots. Everything was in high definition. The host would ask questions about why we were buying what we did, and we would explain how hard these things are to get in foreign countries. We changed clothes several times to make it look like this footage was being taken over several weeks.

On Wednesday, they recorded aboard Kosmos. They filmed scenes of us as we did assorted work to the boat in anticipation for the “upcoming ocean crossing”, and again the host asked all kinds of questions about why we each thing was important. Again we changed clothes several times.

On Thursday morning, we “left for the big trip”. On our real circumnavigation we had picked a non-standard course, leaving from San Diego and going directly to the Marquesas. For this second circumnavigation, we would follow the standard sailing route, going from San Diego to Puerto Vallarta before crossing the Pacific to the Marquesas. The crew joined us on a day ride down to Ensenada, where we were supposedly going to briefly stop to check into Mexico before continuing south. The seas were calm and smooth, and the ride was most pleasant. The crew was hoping to catch some images of whales, but we’ve just missed whale season, so we didn’t see any. We pulled into port in the early evening.

On Friday morning, the crew followed us around as we checked into Mexico. Again, the host asked a million questions and we explained the check in process. Then the crew followed us as we went sight seeing in downtown, and encouraged us to drink more alcohol than we normally do. In the later afternoon, they followed us as we checked back out, though the check out video would not be used in the show since we are supposedly staying in Mexico.

On Sunday morning, we all headed back to San Diego aboard Kosmos. Usually, the seas are more uncomfortable going north than south, and while it was a little rougher than it was on the way down, it was still a pleasant ride. The crew had been hoping for some bigger seas for more dramatic footage. No one had said it out loud, but we were all thinking the same thing. Nothing dramatic had happened this week, and we all know that drama sells. There was no way this un-dramatic show would get picked up.

A couple hours after we headed out, the main engine started to sputter and then shut down. Eric went down to investigate, obviously panicky and upset, and the camera guy followed him, recording. The first thing he noticed was there was no fuel visible in fuel filter, meaning the fuel had run dry from that source (the fuel filter is housed in a glass container so you can see if it is clogged or empty). So he quickly turned on the secondary filter and ran upstairs. Eric cranked over the engine and it came back on. Thankfully he did not need to bleed the engine, which is a process to get air out of the fuel lines (with no fuel in the filter, air could have easily gotten into the lines).

Eric said to the camera, “I think we have a fuel problem, maybe something is clogged up.” He then proceeded to explain how he switched to the secondary fuel filter and would need to start investigating what was wrong. The host asked if fuel problems were common, and Eric started to answer when the engine died again. Eric and the cameraman ran back downstairs. The secondary fuel filter was also mostly empty. Hmmm”¦. something was stopping fuel at the supply tank. Eric accessed the fuel supply tank, located under a step in the engine room, and saw that the main fuel valve was shut off!

Eric was pissed off to no end. Clearly, the production crew had decided to manufacture some drama for the show. When Eric demanded to know who did it, every one of them denied it and said the fuel lever must have accidentally been bumped during some recording. They were constantly poking around the boat, so it was a plausible, though unlikely, excuse. Eric decided to let it go.

Eric turned on the fuel, and tried to start the engine. But it didn’t start, probably because there was too much air in the lines. It makes sense why it started the first time but not this time, since the secondary fuel filter is higher than the engine and is gravity fed, but now all the fuel was left in the lines and engine was down lower, allowing air into the system. We started up the wing engine. We have often wondered if it was worth it to get a wing engine, and now we feel it was. While the little engine is slow, it does at least give us steering control and the ability to keep from drifting with the current.

Christi stood at the helm and held position while Eric angrily bled the main engine. The crew recorded away. Bleeding the main engine is something we trained for, but have never had to do before on Kosmos, and it turned out to be a pain in the butt. The engine was hot, and it was a bit awkward to loosen the bleed bolts. Eric also managed to hurt his hand in the process. It is not a bad enough injury to need a doctor, but it hurts to move his hand. Eric is relieved that at least the seas were calm; it would have been a nightmare to bleed the engine in rough seas, particularly with a hurt hand. Once he was done with the engine, he came back upstairs and fired up the main engine. It sputtered a bit, but it started. We both breathed a sigh of relief.

Minutes later, the high water bilge pump alarm went off. We were both horrified. Did we have a real leak or had the production crew decided to try to sink our boat? Eric again went down to investigate. The bilge was indeed very full with water. He started checking around. It did not take long to notice the sea strainer to the generator was spewing out water. The hose to the generator sea strainer had been disconnected and water was pouring in from the hose. He tried to reconnect the hose and realized it had been cut, and now the hose was too short to reach the strainer. It was clearly deliberate. These whackos really were trying to sink our boat! We knew it had to be the producer’s assistant behind the sabotage efforts. He was the only one of them that knew enough about boats to know to cut the strainer hose. Eric’s temper was really flaring now.

We have an “emergency leak bag”, and it includes a special epoxy that can dry underwater and several plugs. Eric pulled out the epoxy, but the crew seemed a bit disappointed when Eric put it aside and got out several wooden plugs of various sizes. As the water continued to flood in, we were pleased to see that the regular and high water bilge pumps were doing an adequate job of keeping the water level under control. If either one stopped working, it wouldn’t be a big deal since we have two back up pumps. One is a manual bilge pump (which takes some physical strength to operate for more than a couple minutes. Eric was tempted to make the production crew go pump it as a punishment whether it was needed or not). The second is a mechanized emergency pump that can be plugged into ship’s power or an external battery. Of course, we had discussed with the production crew how well prepared we were for leaks, so the boat savvy assistant knew he was not going to sink us by cutting one relatively easy to access hose.

Eric found the right size plug and with little effort was able to shove the plug into the hose, completely stopping the leak. Of course, he was doused in salt water. By this point, he was not a happy camper. We will save you some of the yelling that went on.

The two of us sat in fear for the rest of the trip back to San Diego, terrified about what this crazy crew was going to do next. Didn’t they know they were putting all our lives in danger? But, it seemed that the video they got was dramatic enough and that they didn’t need to make any more sabotage efforts. They were thrilled about the whole experience, and sure the show would get picked up. We were sure that we wanted no part of reality TV. Sorry, but being famous was not worth risking our lives. So today, on April 1st, we officially cancelled the plans for doing the show. Eric is back to work, and thinking about some boat and fuel modifications.