THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 5, 1994 TAG: 9407020055
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LARRY BONKO
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
IN ``SEAPOWER: A Global Journey,'' a weekly six-part series that begins on WHRO tonight at 9, Public Broadcasting takes viewers where few Westerners have been in the last 70 years - the formerly top-secret, hush-hush Russian port of Vladivostok, where much of the Soviet Pacific fleet rides idly at anchor.
The camera's eye sees warships without fuel or the facilities to repair them.
``It is a fleet that nobody needs. The ships are rotting. They are floating scrap metal. It is both a tragic and comic sight,'' a former Soviet Navy captain says on camera.
In this long, ambitious series about life on the sea - a way of life familiar to thousands who live in Hampton Roads - PBS takes what could be a dry economics lesson and transforms it into compelling television.
Viewers are transported to the decks of the American supercarrier Independence. The crewmen tell how it is - how it really is - aboard a modern Navy warship.
``It's always crowded. Everywhere you go, there are lines. Sometimes the ship smells. Stinks. That's the result of 137 guys living in one large room and sleeping in a space three bunks high. All that you own is contained in a locker 3 feet wide and 6 feet long, a locker that you sleep on.
``There are four showers for 137 guys. Living on a carrier is living in a city of loud noises with an airport on the top. You're surrounded by 2,000 tons of explosives worth $250 million.''
Episode II reveals how the Soviets built one mighty supercarrier but never figured out how to use it. It, too, rides at anchor.
Sea power is such a deep subject - as deep as the ocean - that the PBS producers wouldn't dare attempt to cover it in one, two or even three hours. It took six. The narrator is Leonard Nimoy, who has boldly gone where few actors have gone before as part of the ``Star Trek'' cast.
But not even the well-traveled Nimoy has been to Vladivostok before.
Or aboard a tanker loaded with 135,000 tons of Iranian heavy crude oil, squeezing through the Suez Canal.
Or aboard a U.S. cruiser, the Mobile Bay, equipped with super-sophisticated weaponry.
Or on the decks of a luxurious cruise ship with room for 2,400 passengers.
This was a series that could have been made for viewers in Hampton Roads. The sea is us and we are the sea.
``Since Norfolk is on the ocean, the people who live there and in the surrounding cities are sea-minded. But that is not the case when you go a few hundred miles inland,'' said Belgium-born Luc Cuyvers, an editor and producer on ``Seapower: A Global Journey.''
Cuyvers uses the series to preach a little about what a shame it is that the U.S. maritime fleet has declined so. Only 4 percent of the 850 million tons of trade carried to and from U.S. ports including Hampton Roads was aboard American ships. America is a naval power, but not a sea power.
That's one of the points made in this series.
``This series is about the oceans, but it isn't about sharks, whales or people who occasionally muck up the sea with an oil spill. This series is about the oceans' impact on humanity. We show that to be able to rule the seas, you must know the seas and know them well,'' said Cuyvers in a telephone interview from Maryland.
Maryland Public Television put the series together for PBS.
Maybe you've lived here by the sea for years and never gave a second thought to the ocean at your doorstep. . . or the ships that use it as a highway to the world's ports. Or maybe you're sea-minded, to use Cuyvers' phrase.
However you feel about the sea, you'll know a lot more about its lure and its dangers if you watch just one hour of ``Seapower: A Global Journey.'' by CNB