ABC2 - Navigators - Baudin Vs Flinders - Part1: The Race (2003)

In 1801, two men embark on one of the greatest ocean races the world has ever seen. The rivals - Frenchman Nicolas Baudin and his British challenger Matthew Flinders - each lead expeditions hailed as "Voyages of Discovery". Captain Nicolas Baudin is entrusted with leading the most ambitious French "Voyage of Discovery" ever assembled - two ships loaded with 22 scientists and the best technology Revolutionary France has to offer. Baudin's ships will return to France carrying arguably the greatest collection of natural history specimens ever collected. Yet Baudin will be vilified and ultimately forgotten by history, thanks largely to his voyage's troublesome scientist, Francois Peron.

Baudin's rival is a brash young English lieutenant, Matthew Flinders, an ambitious 26-year-old - a talented and flawed man who is today venerated as one of Australia's greatest explorers, yet he is virtually unknown in his own country, Britain.

Both missions are seeking to map the unknown coasts of New Holland. Having set off for the adventure of a lifetime, both men instead soon find themselves pitted against shipwreck, scurvy, imprisonment and death, as well as one another. Having embarked to conquer the Unknown, they discover in the end, that perhaps the Unknown has conquered them…