Anyone in need of a good, dramatic anecdote? How about sailing 100-foot waves on nothing but a catamaran?

How about surviving a plane crash after the wings of your glider peel off? (Not for you? We have six other perilous plane crashes to choose from!)

How about a lightly used story about hanging out with Charles Lindbergh just before his famous trans-Atlantic flight?

When you're filmmaker David Brown, and the subject of your full-length documentary is surfing icon and adventure Renaissance man Woody Brown (no relation), the stories that end up on your cutting-room floor are often better than the best material in other documentaries.

"Of Wind and Waves: The Life of Woody Brown" tours the Islands this week with special appearances by both Brown the filmmaker and Brown the cackling 94-year-old free spirit.

David said he was excited but not terribly surprised that Woody, a Maui resident, was willing to jump on the barnstorming tour.

The last time they traveled together, on a series of West Coast screenings for David Brown's earlier film "Surfing for Life," Woody proved capable of riding any sort of wave, be it wind, ocean or media.

"We were roommates, and I couldn't keep up with him," David says. "He's sharp, he's engaged and he's spirited. We'd talk until we went to sleep, and when we woke up, he'd pick up right where we left off."

Well, Woody has a lot to share.

Presented without narration, "Of Wind and Waves" relies on candid interviews with a host of Woody's peers, acquaintances and loved ones, from big-wave compatriots Willy Froiseth and Joe Quigg to contemporary admirers like Laird Hamilton and David Kalama, and Woody's newly connected family, which includes children ranging in age from the teens to the 70s. Woody's daughter Mary Sue, in particular, adds a level of cohesiveness with insights into her father's life.

David and Woody first met in 1993, when David interviewed him for "Surfing for Life." It was soon clear to David that Woody's life was too rich to tell in one simple segment.

"He deserved his own film," David says.

So David approached Woody with the idea. Woody, not so humble that he couldn't appreciate a little recognition after years of relative obscurity, was all for it.

The film tracks Woody from his earliest days as Woodrow Parker Brown, son of a Wall Street brokerage owner. Though affluent and well-connected (Woody would wear a tuxedo to dinner at home), the Brown family was itself unique to the times. They refused to eat meat because they objected to animal cruelty. They participated in an anti-war march through New York City.

Still, Brown longed to escape the high-society scene. As a teenager, he developed a fascination with flying and hung out at Curtis Field, where he helped Lindbergh prepare for his famous flight and where his love for gliders was first stoked.

Brown met his future wife, Betty, in New York and promptly bolted for California. They settled in La Jolla, where they raised Betty's daughter, Jennifer.

During this period, Woody's innovative streak began to manifest. An avid glider pilot, he became the first to launch a plane from a cliff (towed by Betty) rather than off the beach. Warming quickly to the California surf scene, he built his first surfboard from a plank, then improved on it by building one with a hollow center — the world's first hollow-body board.

Woody gained national acclaim in 1939 by setting a distance record piloting a glider 263 miles from Wichita Falls, Texas, to Wichita, Kan.

Woody's world unraveled when Betty died giving birth to their son, Jeffrey. He turned over the two children to relatives and disappeared into a two-year emotional void.

"I couldn't live without her," Woody says in the film. "Nothing had any meaning in life to me anymore.

"It wasn't just them I abandoned," he says later. "I abandoned everything, including myself."

Brown would start to rebuild his life in Hawai'i. When he first arrived, he'd wander the streets by day and avail himself of the hospitality of local strangers at night. He made friends, went fishing, helped his hosts collect fruit. And, eventually, he started surfing again.

In Waikiki, he fell in with a group of oddballs — including Peter Cole, John Kelly, Henry Lum, Russ Takaki and others who found secret pleasure in blue water and big waves. They chased stories of monster waves up the Wai'anae Coast to the North Shore, blazing a trail for generations of big-wave riders.

Woody also found love again with a volatile but deeply loving Hawaiian woman named Rachel. The couple would have two children, and Rachel was "Mama Brown" for the fringe community of surfers that had adopted Woody.

The group's exploits captured national attention when a photo of Woody, George Downing and Buzzy Trent riding a giant wave on the North Shore moved over the wires and was reprinted in newspapers around the country, eventually galvanizing the California surf community in a great migration across the Pacific.

A conscientious objector in World War II, Woody was sent to work as a surveyor on what was then Christmas Island. There, he sailed a double-hulled canoe for the first time and set his mind to using the design for a watercraft of his own.

Back at home, Woody drew from ancient Hawaiian canoe designs to create a craft he called Manu Kai — the first modern-day catamaran and, at the time, the world's fastest sailboat.

For many years, Woody earned a living giving catamaran rides to tourists in Waikiki — his flights (literally) of derring-do were enough to give modern insurance agents an ulcer.

One frequent flyer was a man named Hobie Alter, who would draw on Woody's design for a line of catamarans he called "Hobie-Cats" — the best-selling catamarans of the day.

Woody didn't mind — "I can't be bothered with making a million dollars," he says in the film.

In fact, Woody was so put off by competition from other catamaran operators that he abandoned his business for a time and moved the family to a farm on Maui.

Mama Brown died in 1985 from complications of diabetes, and Woody was there to care for her during her last year.

Two years later, Woody married Macrene Canaveral, and had another child, Woody Jr.

The last third of the film finds Woody in a reflective state, philosophizing on the "spirit wave" that will take him to his next, greatest challenge and the unconditional love that he feels for everyone.

And, yet, haunting the film is Woody's abandonment of his son and stepdaughter and the inevitable questions that follow from that.

"The biggest problem was how to confront that," David says.

In the end, David took a risk in hopes of finding a resolution not just for his film but for the cataract on Woody's amazing life.

David had been contacted by the significant other of Woody's son Jeffrey shortly after "Surfing for Life" played in San Francisco. The filmmaker met with Jeffrey, who agreed, apprehensively, to a reunion with his father.

The reunion is captured on film, Woody's genuine emotion wiping away the contrivance of the situation.

The filmmaker also arranged a reunion between Woody and his stepdaughter, Jennifer, and the result was just as moving — despite one uncomfortable fact, not revealed in the film: The two actually met before, in the 1970s.

"It was awkward," David explains. "And he doesn't remember it."

While some documentarians may object to David's manipulation of events, David says he is convinced it was the right thing to do.

"The reunions were amazing experiences," he says. "You just don't know what will happen in a situation like that. It was a privilege to make those happy events happen, because everybody benefited."

Though admiring of Woody's life, "Of Wind and Waves," is more than a tribute. Woody's moments of weakness and self-absorption are examined as closely as his accomplishments.

The bio-doc was shaped from hundreds of hours of research, interviews and filming, and a rough cut, shown in Honolulu at the 2005 Hawaii International Film Festival, clocked in at two and a half hours. This final version is a lean but satisfying one hour that somehow manages to document the long litany of Woody's accomplishments while constructing an emotionally powerful story of loss and redemption.

"I'd like people to come away with a feeling of inspiration, with a feeling that redemption is possible," David says. "Woody's life is an incredibly inspiring story about the power of family and community, about following your bliss, about enduring friendship, and ultimately, about redemption."

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.