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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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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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The Shark Week Flick 'Capsized: Blood in the Water' Is Based on Terrifying True Events

Jul. 31 2019, Updated 7:04 p.m. ET

Well y'all, it's that time of year again: Shark Week. The 31st season of the annual program kicked off on Discovery Channel on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET. And while the live footage is usually what I anticipate most, one TV movie, Capsized: Blood in the Water, has caught my attention.

Most of the TV movies during Shark Week tend to be far-fetched, but this one seems particularly realistic. So in case you're wondering if Capsized: Blood in the Water is a true story, brace yourself — it's based on real-life events.

What is the true story behind Capsized: Blood in the Water?

Capsized: Blood in the Water happens to be Discovery's first full feature film to debut during the intriguing (yet completely terrifying) week-long program, according to NBC. 

And despite the fact the movie screams Hollywood (I mean — really — it stars Josh Duhamel), the film was apparently based on some seriously wild real-life events. 

The movie is based on a tragedy that occurred in 1982. According to National Post , it all started when a boat owner hired a crew to bring his yacht, 'Trashman' to his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. from Portland, Maine. However, it capsized during a storm and sunk off the coast of North Carolina by Morehead City. 

The area is an infamous home to sharks, and though the crew crammed into a lifeboat, many were bleeding from injuries incurred from the storm. The lifeboat was soon surrounded by tiger sharks.

The crew was stranded for a total of 18 hours, according to Popular Mechanics , Two crew members, Captain John Lippoth and his friend, Mark Adams, had been consistently drunk during the excursion. 

They drank seawater and soon became incoherent and went overboard. The captain's girlfriend ended up dying from blood poisoning, and had to be thrown overboard. 

In the end, only two crew members, Deborah Scaling Kiley and Brad Cavanagh, survived. They were eventually rescued by a Soviet cargo freighter. 

According to Popular Mechanics ,   Deborah and Brad were unable to do much after the storm. They lost most of their food, water, and supplies. 

Plus, seeing as the captain was consistently drunk and apparently afraid of the ocean, he wasn't an incredibly helpful asset.

The Capsized: Blood in the Water trailer was officially released on Shark Week's Twitter account last week. It depicts the story of the stranded crew, and how they tried their best to survive in a lifeboat without supplies, while being hunted by tiger sharks. 

Definitely watch it if you haven't already, below.

Like I said, the Shark Week feature film stars Josh Duhamel (so it's bound to be a beautiful time), as well as Tyler Blackburn, and Beau Garrett. 

You will officially be able to watch it as of July 31 at 9 p.m. ET on the Discovery Channel. Oh, and don't worry — it's a no-life-jacket-required viewing party... just make sure you remember to keep all of your emotions in check. Sharks can smell fear, you know. 

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'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.

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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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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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Capsized: Blood in the Water

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Capsized: Blood in the Water is an American biographical natural survival horror film based on a true story from 1982. It is the first scripted Shark Week feature film and debuted on the Discovery Channel as an exclusive to the annual weekly event on July 31, 2019.

• 3.1 Filming
• 4 Reception

On October 22, 1982, the yacht known as the Trashman pulls into Annapolis, Maryland for a routine transfer. The crew, consisting of Captain John Lippoth, Deborah "Deb" Scaling-Kiley, Mark Adams, and John's girlfriend Meg Mooney, are joined by Brad Cavanaugh in their journey to Florida. During the journey, John tells Brad that he has to decide what kind of man he wants to be. As night comes in, the U.S. Coast Guard receives information of two storms blowing in from the west and into the gulf stream and send out a warning to all ships in the area. However, the crew of the Trashman fail to get the report as Mark had fallen asleep at the radio after getting drunk and is thus caught in the storm. Meg is injured when the kitchen stove's door falls open and cuts her leg, leaving Brad to tend to her. John sends an SOS signal to the Coast Guard, who send out two ships to help. But as the wait while last three hours, John, not wanting to risk the changes of Meg getting infection, tries to steer the Trashman towards shore when a tidal wave hits, capsizing the yacht and leaving the crew stranded in the ocean with an upturned raft.

The next day, after the storm has ended, the crew realize they are being surrounded by tiger sharks drawn by the blood from Meg's injured leg. In their desperation to climb out of the water, the raft is accidentally flipped over, and the crew has to pull a panicking Mark off after he climbed onto it, barely escaping. The sharks, attracted by their panicked noises and movements, begin ramming the bottom of the boat, but John manages to calm everyone down and convince them to wait until help arrives. After thirty-one hours adrift, John tries to use a belt to tie off circulation poke a hole in Meg's leg to drain it of infection. When Meg's cries of pains begin to draw the sharks into ramming the boat, Mark grabs the belt and throws it into the ocean in a panic, causing John to angrily grab and begin strangling Mark before the others pull him off. Mark puts the blame on John for their situation. The next day, John jumps into the water after spotting an island and begins swimming towards it; however, he realizes that it is just a mirage when the others begin calling him back, but a shark attacks and pulls him under before the others can pull him back into the raft.

After fifty-nine hours adrift, the remaining survivors begin to suffer from dehydration. Mark starts drinking the sea water despite everyone's protests. By the following day, he begins to start screaming and irrationally pounding the bottom of the boat, attracting a tiger shark, even when Brad attempts to calm him down. The shark knocks Mark out of the raft and drags him underwater, where he becomes trapped under the bottom of the raft and is killed. By nightfall, Meg has succumbed to infection; by the next morning, she is dead. Brad and Deb place her body into the water as part of an ocean burial, leaving the sharks to feed on her corpse.

After a hundred and nine hours adrift, Brad and Deb decide to flip the raft over to drain it of blood and dirty water, in spite of the fact that doing so means the risk of attracting more sharks. However, Brad begins to show signs of weakening, forcing Deb to pull him into the raft before a tiger shark can take him. On the sixth day, the pair spot an approaching Soviet tanker and jump in to swim towards it. Brad makes it to the ship but swims back for Deb when she falls behind and sinks, leaving her an open target for the sharks. The ship starts blowing its horn, frightening away the sharks and buying time for the sailors to pull Brad and Deb out of the water.

An epilogue reveals that Brad and Deb spent eight days in the hospital for treatment of dehydration and starvation. Deb went on to have a successful career, authoring three books of her experiences before her death in 2012, while Brad spent several years dealing with his trauma of the experience. The film ends on a modern-day shot of Brad sailing his boat along the same route taken by the Trashman .

• Tyler Blackburn as Brad Cavanaugh
• Beau Garrett as Deborah "Deb" Scaling-Kiley
• Josh Close as Mark Adams
• Rebekah Graf as Meg Mooney
• Josh Duhamel as Capt. John Lippoth

Production [ ]

Following the summer staple's thirtieth anniversary, "there was a lot of discussion around, 'How do we build on this success?'" says Howard Starz, Discovery senior vice president of production and development. "So we decided to do something out of the box." In 2019, Discovery Channel announced the scheduled release for the thirty-first season of Shark Week, with Capsized: Blood in the Water listed among its release as A Shark Week Film, the first of its kind. During the press release, the network stated that basing the film on a true story was congruent with the program's educational nature. Staying true to the historical facts, featuring tiger sharks (an oceanic predator with a reputation for eating anything), and with the statistical average number of six fatal shark attacks per year, the network stated it would refrain from demonizing sharks.

Filming [ ]

Production took place in the Dominican Republic, at the Pinewood Studios location on the islands.

Much of the photography took place with the cast treading in a 2.4-million-gallon tank. Crew members reportedly worked for hours in the scorching heat, upon metal catwalks constructed over the large tank. The tank was filled with chest-high water, where the actors dramatized the film's events. Sharks were added to the scenes during post-production through use of CGI special effects.

The film's score was provided by Extreme Music, a music production company subsidiary of Sony Entertainment, Inc.

Reception [ ]

The film was well received by critics praising it for its realistic portrayal of survival and noted its educational value. Special effects and use of real shark footage was noted, while differences in the story were pointed out. Other reviews noted the effective use of tension, and suspenseful thriller aspects. Some reviews acknowledged the network's intention to keep from depicting the sharks as villainous as effective; even noting that actors within the film were successfully scared by the artificial sharks used during the attack scenes.

Gallery [ ]

• 1 Amanda Halterman (1000-lb Sisters)
• 2 Tammy Slaton (1000-lb Sisters)
• 3 Naked and Afraid

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.

A yacht crew battles shark-infested waters after capsizing.

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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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“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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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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Capsized, The True Story of Four Men Lost at Sea for 119 Days Paperback – Import, January 1, 1994

• Print length 240 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Harper Collins
• Publication date January 1, 1994
• Dimensions 4.37 x 0.59 x 7.01 inches
• ISBN-10 0006381138
• ISBN-13 978-0006381136
• See all details

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Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Collins; New Ed edition (January 1, 1994)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0006381138
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0006381136
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.37 x 0.59 x 7.01 inches

About the authors

Steven callahan.

Steven Callahan is probably best known for completing an Atlantic crossing after losing his boat mid-ocean in 1982. For 76 days, he learned to live like an aquatic cave in a life raft and drifted 1,800 nautical miles, a voyage he chronicled in Adrift (Houghton Mifflin), which became a NY Times best seller and has been translated into 15 languages. He also authored Capsized (HarperCollins) for survivor Jim Nalepka who spent four months with four other men on an overturned, half-flooded boat, most of their time crammed into the space of a double bed with eighteen inches of headroom. Callahan has contributed writings, illustrations, and photos to more than a dozen other books, many about seamanship and/or survival, such as Michael Greenwald’s Survivor, as well as authoring hundreds of articles for the marine press worldwide. He’s served as contributing editor to Sailor and Sail magazines, and senior editor at Cruising World for which he continues to do special projects such as testing new boats and lifesaving equipment.

From the time he was a kid, Callahan was addicted to the water and boats, and by age 10 was whacking together barges using old roofing boards. He taught himself the basics of boat design and celestial navigation, and helped build a 40 footer prior to graduating high school. As an adult, he has spent more than 40 years in the marine and communications trades, first building boats, then designing and teaching design, as well as living aboard, racing, doing boat deliveries, writing, illustrating, and doing photography. His educational background in philosophy and the arts as well as boat design, and sailing more than 80,000 offshore miles, most shorthanded and on unusual craft, have inspired his primary literary and artistic goal to broaden the audience for maritime subjects by taking non-sailors into the unique and magnificent offshore world where universal human issues often are magnified. He is intrigued by not only the technical elements of boats and the sea but also by the human questions that arise when sailing in the world’s greatest wilderness.

Callahan continues to write about and speak publicly on survival, voyaging, and seamanship, and has been frequently interviewed for television and other media programs. He resides with his wife in Maine where they enjoy living close to nature.

James Nalepka

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