About seven years ago, a guy called Logan McMillan contacted the yacht club to see if they could borrow a dinghy for a movie they were making.

Being the ‘go to’ person that I somehow seem to be, the enquiry was forwarded to me. They had no budget so I wasn’t to expect any payment in return, just the knowledge that my dinghy was going to be made famous!

Well how can you turn down an offer like that!?

My dinghy is called Vittoria. She is the wooden dinghy I leave locked up at the yacht club so I can head out to Wildy any time (she sits on a mooring just around the corner). I have had her as long as I have had Wildy, and before that she had a life with another yacht, cruising around the Pacific. When I got her, she had bright orange sides and a white interior, but nowadays she is just all white, and I am sad to say she is quite scratched & dirty. She takes a bit of a hammering being left outside all day, and she is quite small and tippy, but I love her just the same. We have had lots of adventures together over the years, and only a few people have fallen out of her.

Toddler in the dinghy

Dolphins playing with the dinghy

Despite being famous, Vittoria is still just a regular dinghy, delivering kids to the boat, playing with dolphins etc.

So, being the helpful and generous person I am, I gave them the key to the lock, and just asked that she was back before the next time I wanted to go sailing.

A week or so later, I got an email thanking me, and that she had done a wonderful job and the movie would be released in nine months or so.

For some reason, Vittoria and I were not invited along to the movie premiere and I never got round to watching the movie after that either. In fact I forgot all about it, until just recently…!

I can’t remember what made me think of it, but I was telling Andrew about how he probably didn’t realise how famous Vittoria was, and that yes, she was a bit tippy, and no, there is not that much freeboard when you have 4 adults in there… Of course he did not believe that she was an actual film star, so I decided to Google the movie – and there it was!

She even featured in one of the photos on the movie Facebook page!

I still haven’t seen the whole movie, and the only version I can find on Youtube has been dubbed over in French. I should really watch it anyway as it was set in Christchurch before the earthquakes destroyed the city, so I am sure I would enjoy seeing it even if my high school French is a bit rusty.

The general gist of the movie is that some terrible virus is going around and turning everyone in to zombies. There are only a few people left who aren’t infected, and so they go around killing all the zombies (it is a bit violent and blood thirsty!) In the end there is only one guy left and he jumps in to Vittoria and rows out to sea to escape…

I have never had the call to re-borrow the dinghy so I presume that there wasn’t a sequel made!

Anyway if you would like to see her starring part in the movie, here is the French version on YouTube, and if you fast forward through to 1:20 ish, then you will get to see her starring role – saving the only human left – The Last of the Living!!

Disclaimer – you probably won’t want to show this film to your kids or if you have just eaten breakfast…