For sailors lucky enough to have had one, an open-ocean voyage can be a profound experience — the kind of adventure that redefines possibilities and viewpoints.

But for those not so blessed, there's "Morning Light," the new documentary film from Walt Disney Pictures that offers audiences a rare, blue-water ride-along with a crew of first-timers with an average age of 21, including an 18-year-old from O'ahu. As the cameras rolled, they trained for six months with Honolulu as a base, then raced in the 2,559-mile Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu.

"Morning Light" opens in theaters nationwide Oct. 17.

The ocean does not suffer fools, nor does it discriminate by skill or talent. The experience taught the young crew about life, said Leslie DeMeuse, a veteran sailor who helped conceive and produce the film.

"You are in a little spaceship, and you have to depend on each other," she said during a recent visit to the Waikiki Yacht Club. "When you go out on the ocean, you have to learn, because you can't jump off the boat and call 911 if something goes wrong. You really have to learn how to be self-sufficient and deal with issues when they come along."

DeMeuse knows what she's talking about. Her father took DeMeuse on her first Transpac race when she was 16. During the race, the boat capsized in the middle of the ocean, and her memory of that is filled with the sounds of twisting metal, screaming crew and water rushing in.

That memory was also a key reason that she, along with fellow sailor and producer Roy E. Disney, liked the idea of training a young crew for a Transpac race.

Disney, a former executive and longtime board member of the Walt Disney Company (he's Walt Disney's nephew) is an avid sailing enthusiast. He has participated in the Transpac himself, along with his 17-year-old son.

"I watched it change my own life and my son's," said Disney, owner of the 52-foot sloop Morning Light and the project's sponsor. "To watch that happen on film, to really terrific young people, to see relationships develop was the root of the idea."

A biennial race first held in 1906, the Transpac is one of the most well-known and rigorous events in sailing. The filmmakers liken it to "riding a derailed freight train." Its boats are noisy, high-maintenance racing machines stripped down to essentials. There are no creature comforts.

DeMeuse and Disney selected a pool of 15 sailors — including 18-year-old Mark Towill of Kahalu'u — and trained them in Hawai'i before the 2007 Transpac race. Only 11 of the sailors would crew the race. Character and chemistry were more important than sailing skills.

"They knew they had to get along," said Disney, who joined DeMeuse at the yacht club to promote their film. "It's a little bit like life in a foxhole."

The first challenge — as much for the filmmakers as the crew — was the crew members' first overnight cruise, which happened in February 2007 when they sailed to Moloka'i and back. The crew had to deal with strong winds and the possibility of running into whales.

"That was hard, shoving them off the dock and realizing, 'Oh my gosh, they are going overnight,' " DeMeuse said. "It was howling, and a lot of them got seasick. That was an eyeopener for them. That was when they realized they had to get in shape. They had to resolve the seasickness thing and figure out how to keep organized when there is all chaos on the boat."

Filming the race action was a huge undertaking. It included an onboard photographer, remote-controlled stationary cameras built into Morning Light, handheld night-vision cameras and the use of a chase boat to shadow the high-performance sloop. Cheyenne, a 125-foot catamaran converted to a powerboat, stayed beyond the horizon until footage was needed. Wide shots done from atop a 30-foot-high platform on Cheyenne gave filmmakers the appearance of a helicopter view.

But there were strict race rules: No contact whatsoever, even during the final days of the voyage when the crew, running low on food, was forced to ration supplies.

Onboard photographer Rick Deppe, who is also an experienced sailor, worked day and night to keep up with the crew.

"He knew how to anticipate what was going to happen so he could have the camera in the right place," Disney said. "And he knew the emotional content of the race. There's a lot of ups and downs in a race."

Morning Light finished its Transpac crossing in Hawaiian waters as the sun rose on July 26, 2007. The crew sailed the sloop to a third-place finish in its division, completing the crossing in 10 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes and 15 seconds.

But place and time didn't matter. They had transcended all that and become best friends along the way, probably for life, DeMeuse said.

"They were so young," she said. "This was their first adventure. You just don't forget that."