Paul G.
10-02-2007, 03:30 PM
If you get a chance, I recommend seeing this movie about Don Crowhursts disastrous 1967 race around the world. Great archival footage of the the main players inthe race, Robin Knox Johnson in his 32 foot teak ketch he and his brother built (the winner) Bernard Moittisier who would have won but decided to sail on another 1/2 way around the globe and turned south on the home stretch. Well worth a look.
The bizarre story of a lone sailor in a round-the-world race in 1968 made for riveting film-making, writes Tom Cardy.
Today sailing single-handedly around the world is about as significant as someone climbing Mt Everest. It is still risky and very dangerous – but almost commonplace.
Back in 1968 – a world without global positioning systems, mobile phones or sophisticated weather satellites – it was a journey into the unknown.
One man who decided to make that journey was 36-year-old English marine electronics maker Donald Crowhurst.
British newspaper The Sunday Times that year announced the first non-stop, single-handed around the world sailing race. The one who finished in the fastest time would win (PndStlg)5000 – a big sum at the time.
Nine men signed up, but Crowhurst was the only one without any real sailing experience. At best, he was a weekend sailor who messed about in boats, struggling with his electronics business while raising four children with his wife Clare.
However, he managed to get funded by a businessman for the construction of a then-revolutionary 41-foot trimaran. Crowhurst became the dark horse of the race, the public loving his underdog status.
But it wasn't long into the race, with Crowhurst only just managing to set sail at the last minute, that things started to get strange. Very strange.
New documentary Deep Water, co- directed by British film-maker Louise Osmond, dives straight into what has become one of the strangest, most mysterious and saddest episodes in sailing history.
Without giving too much away, Crowhurst, who filmed himself while on board, made recordings and kept a log, lied that he was much further ahead in the race than he really was. From Britain he never went further than near the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of Africa. Instead he sailed across to Brazil with a plan to join his competitors who were sailing back after making the complete trip and pretend he did the entire journey.
Says Osmond, who was only a baby when Crowhurst set sail: "I don't think I've ever worked on something where everyone involved fell in love with it in a way. There's something about it that just gets under your skin"
"It's one of those amazing, strange stories that was kind of on the circuit. If you were a documentary maker you had probably heard about it at some stage. I heard about it from a director of photography who had sailed around the world a couple of years after that race."
Osmond, who has made several documentaries about big outdoor challenges, was told the story in instalments by the cinematographer as they fitted it around a film they were working on. Osmond couldn't get Crowhurst's story out of her head.
"It has that element in a story of 'No! – gasp – No!' When you first hear it, on one level you're like 'That's unbelievable'. But when you start to peel away the layers and see what it meant for the people involved then it starts to get hard."
Deep Water makes extensive use of old news footage, as well as the film, audio recordings and log entries Crowhurst made, and those of some of his competitors. Osmond and co- director Jerry Rothwell also got the cooperation of Crowhurst's wife Clare, who is interviewed, along with one of his sons.
"They were amazing. Clare Crowhurst's view was, 'I said I'd do this and this is what I'm going to do and do whatever I can to help you and be as honest as I can. You must make the film you believe in.' She was incredibly generous and honest."
Osmond says making Deep Water was bit like going on a voyage where she knew the destination, but not all stops along the way. "You don't know until you sit down on the day with an interviewee how they will be. Some people will be so fascinating off camera and on camera they really give less and less. It's kind of like mirrors within mirrors. I was nervous when it began because Clare by nature is quite reticent. But Clare was just honest. She was angry and she was sad. But she had something to say."
The longer Crowhurst was at sea, the more erratic and bizarre his cables and log entries became. But it wasn't just what Crowhurst wrote that surprised Osmond, it was what she could see from the archives that held the logs and photographs of his boat. "It's extraordinary to be so close to something that's come off the boat with the story you're telling. To touch them and open them. Towards the end – which doesn't come across visually (in the film) – his pencil is just absolutely wearing through the paper. By the end he's writing these last sentences and the pencil marks are just scoring through the page. You feel his distress hugely," she says.
"There are so many kind of clues that build a picture. One of the most striking pieces of evidence that remains was photographs of the inside of the boat when it was found. They are really disturbing. It's hard to say why. On one level he was simply picking apart any machinery to try to repair his radio so he could talk to Clare. But he's torn open everything. There's wires and entrails of stuff over everything. It was really like looking at a place where somebody had become amazingly distressed."
Despite the tragic circumstances, Osmond felt privileged to tell Crowhurst's story. "It was just one of those things. You can wait all your life when you're making documentaries to find a story like that.
The bizarre story of a lone sailor in a round-the-world race in 1968 made for riveting film-making, writes Tom Cardy.
Today sailing single-handedly around the world is about as significant as someone climbing Mt Everest. It is still risky and very dangerous – but almost commonplace.
Back in 1968 – a world without global positioning systems, mobile phones or sophisticated weather satellites – it was a journey into the unknown.
One man who decided to make that journey was 36-year-old English marine electronics maker Donald Crowhurst.
British newspaper The Sunday Times that year announced the first non-stop, single-handed around the world sailing race. The one who finished in the fastest time would win (PndStlg)5000 – a big sum at the time.
Nine men signed up, but Crowhurst was the only one without any real sailing experience. At best, he was a weekend sailor who messed about in boats, struggling with his electronics business while raising four children with his wife Clare.
However, he managed to get funded by a businessman for the construction of a then-revolutionary 41-foot trimaran. Crowhurst became the dark horse of the race, the public loving his underdog status.
But it wasn't long into the race, with Crowhurst only just managing to set sail at the last minute, that things started to get strange. Very strange.
New documentary Deep Water, co- directed by British film-maker Louise Osmond, dives straight into what has become one of the strangest, most mysterious and saddest episodes in sailing history.
Without giving too much away, Crowhurst, who filmed himself while on board, made recordings and kept a log, lied that he was much further ahead in the race than he really was. From Britain he never went further than near the Cape of Good Hope at the bottom of Africa. Instead he sailed across to Brazil with a plan to join his competitors who were sailing back after making the complete trip and pretend he did the entire journey.
Says Osmond, who was only a baby when Crowhurst set sail: "I don't think I've ever worked on something where everyone involved fell in love with it in a way. There's something about it that just gets under your skin"
"It's one of those amazing, strange stories that was kind of on the circuit. If you were a documentary maker you had probably heard about it at some stage. I heard about it from a director of photography who had sailed around the world a couple of years after that race."
Osmond, who has made several documentaries about big outdoor challenges, was told the story in instalments by the cinematographer as they fitted it around a film they were working on. Osmond couldn't get Crowhurst's story out of her head.
"It has that element in a story of 'No! – gasp – No!' When you first hear it, on one level you're like 'That's unbelievable'. But when you start to peel away the layers and see what it meant for the people involved then it starts to get hard."
Deep Water makes extensive use of old news footage, as well as the film, audio recordings and log entries Crowhurst made, and those of some of his competitors. Osmond and co- director Jerry Rothwell also got the cooperation of Crowhurst's wife Clare, who is interviewed, along with one of his sons.
"They were amazing. Clare Crowhurst's view was, 'I said I'd do this and this is what I'm going to do and do whatever I can to help you and be as honest as I can. You must make the film you believe in.' She was incredibly generous and honest."
Osmond says making Deep Water was bit like going on a voyage where she knew the destination, but not all stops along the way. "You don't know until you sit down on the day with an interviewee how they will be. Some people will be so fascinating off camera and on camera they really give less and less. It's kind of like mirrors within mirrors. I was nervous when it began because Clare by nature is quite reticent. But Clare was just honest. She was angry and she was sad. But she had something to say."
The longer Crowhurst was at sea, the more erratic and bizarre his cables and log entries became. But it wasn't just what Crowhurst wrote that surprised Osmond, it was what she could see from the archives that held the logs and photographs of his boat. "It's extraordinary to be so close to something that's come off the boat with the story you're telling. To touch them and open them. Towards the end – which doesn't come across visually (in the film) – his pencil is just absolutely wearing through the paper. By the end he's writing these last sentences and the pencil marks are just scoring through the page. You feel his distress hugely," she says.
"There are so many kind of clues that build a picture. One of the most striking pieces of evidence that remains was photographs of the inside of the boat when it was found. They are really disturbing. It's hard to say why. On one level he was simply picking apart any machinery to try to repair his radio so he could talk to Clare. But he's torn open everything. There's wires and entrails of stuff over everything. It was really like looking at a place where somebody had become amazingly distressed."
Despite the tragic circumstances, Osmond felt privileged to tell Crowhurst's story. "It was just one of those things. You can wait all your life when you're making documentaries to find a story like that.