The Free China Junk

"New Zealand filmmaker Robin Greenberg uncovers the remarkable adventure of five young fishermen who set off from Taiwan in 1955 intending to cross the Pacific in an old junk. The plan: to sail to San Francisco, then haul the boat across the US to take part in a trans-Atlantic yacht race. Though none of them had any experience of junks or the open sea, they charmed the notoriously xenophobic government of the day into not only permitting their improbable project, but also attaching the country’s name – Free China – to the ill-equipped boat." (New Zealand International Film Festival 2010)

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