Yachting films on cinema release are rare, but currently Deep Water is attracting a lot of attention - and very favourable reviews. The new offering from the makers of Touching the Void hopes to do for sailing what that hit documentary did for mountaineering.
However, this time there is no triumphant escape from disaster. This is the story of single-handed yachtsman Donald Crowhurst's doomed campaign in the 1968 Golden Globe round the world race.
Crowhurst, a marine electronics whiz who hoped to make his fortune by getting publicity for his pioneering products through the race, was feeling the financial pinch, as well as being pressurised by his sponsor and the media when he set off around the world in a plywood trimaran, which was ill-suited and ill-prepared for such a voyage.
The outer hulls leaked, and he had no way of emptying them in heavy weather, having left part of his bilge pump on the dockside. Crowhurst realised that tackling the Southern Ocean in such a state would mean certain death.
So he came up with a plan to hang around in the South Atlantic until the rest of the fleet rounded Cape Horn, and then rejoin them for the race to the finish.
It wouldn't be possible with today's satellites tracking and communications, but in those days all the competitors were virtually incommunicado once they left sight of land.
So Crowhurst thought it would work. For months he kept two logbooks, the real one charting his actual position in the Atlantic, and a fictitious round the world log, designed to fool the race organisers.
When he finally resumed radio contact, he appeared to be in second place for the prize for the fastest circumnavigation - but then disaster struck. The race leader's trimaran broke up and sank, and the impostor found himself in the lead.
He realised that if he won his logbooks would be scrutinised and the deception would be uncovered. After months alone at sea, Crowhurst suffered what in those days was known as a nervous breakdown.
The evidence for this is the 25,000 word confused and rambling confession which was recovered from his abandoned boat. It seemed that he had deliberately gone overboard and drowned himself, unable to cope with the guilt of his own deception, its inevitable discovery and the shame he believed would follow. His body was never found.
The film is not intended to make comfortable viewing - watching a man suffering isolation psychosis and, also, through interviews with his wife Clare and son Simon, the deep wounds he left behind.
Crowhurst's family were closley involved in the making of the film - as were many of the people who took part in that extraordinary race, including Robin Knox Johnson, currently racing round the world alone again, in Saga Insurance, in the Velux 5 Oceans.
The audio and video of Crowhurst's descent into madness been somewhat edited down from the original BBC black and white documentary. There is also archive footage of the other competitors. Tilda Swinton provides the linking commentary. The viewer is left to decide whether the misguided skipper was a cheat who got what he deserved - or a victim of circumstance.
Nearly 40 years after the events, the moral of the story seems to be that he simply made the wrong decisions again and again. To attempt to solve his financial problems by taking part in an epic, pioneering yacht race (which many commentators at the time thought was actually impossible, and indeed Robin Knox Johnston, in Suhaili, was the only one of the nine contestants who actually finished) was a foolhardy gamble.
It was another mistake for Crowhurst to think he could deceive the world, and an even bigger mistake to value his reputation above his life.
Reviewing the film the RYA said: “Nobody deserves a fate like Crowhurst's and there are some useful lessons for sailors in this film. The necessity of a shake-down sail before undertaking any long trip, to test not only the equipment, but also crew, rings as true today as it did in 1968.”
Deep Water is currently on view at cinemas around the country.
For more information visit www.deepwatermovie.co.uk
