On Thursday evening, Yukoners and others across the country can relive the experience of one of their own when CBC's DocZone airs Abandon Ship: The Sinking of the S.V. Concordia.

The documentary goes back nearly a year ago to Feb. 17, 2010. That's when the tall ship that was sailing the world and carrying 48 high school students, including Yukoner Erica Trimble, and eight teachers from the Class Afloat school program along with another eight crew members, sank off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The boat had been on its way to a tall ship festival in Uruguay and was capsized after it hit a microburst – a weather system causing severe winds similar to tornados.

Trimble and other students from around the world studying through the Class Afloat program were only two weeks into their second semester of the school year. They had only six days of intense dry land sail training and drills in Lunenberg, N.S. before getting on board the 57.5-metre ship built in 1992 specifically for the high school program.

They had been on the water only nine days when the ship capsized.

Anticipating the squalls, Capt. William Curry reduced the sails on the boat and first mate Rob McDonald was at the helm when it sank.

It took only 18 minutes and in that time, all 64 people aboard managed to get themselves into life rafts – three carrying 20 people each and the remaining four in an eight-person raft.

After 41 hours in the rafts, two freighter ships – the Philippines-flagged Hokuetsu Delight and the Caymen Island-flagged Crystal Pioneer – rescued all of the students, teachers and they were taken in Rio de Janeiro.

Shortly after coming back to Whitehorse after the disaster, Trimble recalled her own experience as she was standing on the starboard side of the ship during her shift on deck watch when it tossed her overboard.

While she was able to get back and climb onto the deck, as the boat sank she found herself jumping back into the water and swimming to one of the life boats.

"I felt so much adrenaline, fear and shock all at the same time and the second I got into the lifeboat, I couldn't move my arms and legs; they felt like they weighed 100 pounds,” Trimble said last year. She later gave credit to the crew, emergency training and daily practice for the fact no one died.

As the 41 hours passed before anyone found them, students began to wonder if anyone would find them.

"Everybody was really bummed out, and then there was a lot of doubt ... ‘what if we die out here?' people were saying,” said Trimble. "‘Well, if anybody is getting out alive,' I thought, ‘it's going to be me.'”

Since the sinking of the Concordia, the Class Afloat program - for students in Grades 11, 12 and their Gap year – has moved to Montreal and is operated by founder Terry Davies and his wife, Laura. Davies started the program in 1984.

It's the memories of students and staff like Trimble that will be the focus of the one-hour documentary.

"Directed by Dianne Carruthers-Wood, acclaimed director and mother of one of the students on the ship, this story is told straight from the heart and reveals how the tight bond shared onboard kept them all afloat,” notes a statement about the film.

Carruthers-Wood has produced and written a number of other documentaries including:

• co-writing and producing The Life and Times of Alex Trebek: No Easy Answers in 2004 for CBC Life and Times;

• producing 1800 Seconds: Chasing Canada's Snowbirds for CBC National in 2002;

• co-writing and producing Shipyard's Lament for CBC RoughCuts in 2001;

• co-writing and field producing The Mouth That Roared: The Life and Times of Vicki Gabereau for CBC Life and Times in 1999;

• producing the DGC Kickstart short film Riverburn in 2003; and

• producing fashion profiles on Canadian designers for Sew Much Fun with Linda MacPhee for PBS/Access/HGTV in 1998.

Abandon Ship: The Sinking of the SV Concordia will air at 9 p.m. Thursday on the CBC and be re-telecast at 10 p.m. Friday on CBC Newsworld.