Deep Water - modern tale of the sea

Donald Crowhurst on the Electron at the start of 1968
Golden Globe race, courtesy of The Sunday Times.

The famous yacht now sits on the south shore of
Cayman Brac.

The Deep Water film crew – Director Jerry Rothwell
(front), Camera Assistant Jamie Hammond, and
Director of Photography Nina Kellgren – on location
on Cayman Brac.

By Nicky Watson

Friday,  August 19, 2005

The Teignmouth Electron was the stage for one of the most compelling sea stories of modern times, but few on Cayman Brac, where the famous yacht ended up, know its history.

Director Jerry Rothwell and his film crew spent time on the Brac recently to shoot footage of the boat for a new documentary feature film Deep Water, due to be released in March.

“On the Brac, we found people who have grown up with the boat as a landmark but none of them know the story behind it,” he said.

“At the moment the story is bracketed at the start and at the end by the discovery of the abandoned boat on the beach on Cayman Brac,” said Mr Rothwell, though adding that this is not certain.

The Teignmouth Electron was designed and sailed by Donald Crowhurst, a British electronics engineer and amateur sailor. It was one of nine boats in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe, the first non-stop, single-handed, round the world sailing race.

On 1 July 1969, the yacht was found abandoned in the Atlantic, and a tale unfolded of an outlandish hoax and the gradual decay of a man lost within himself.

Without ever leaving the Atlantic, Crowhurst had kept a fraudulent track of his global voyage so successfully that he was expected to not only finish the race, but to win.

However, in a tale worthy of Greek tragedy, Crowhurst, succumbing to the pressures of the race, the sea and the enormity of his lie, slipped into a state of schizophrenic paranoia and finally committed suicide.

“For me it’s a really interesting story, the kind that people get into and say, is that really true?” Mr Rothwell told Cayman Net News on his visit to Cayman Brac.

Though there have been plans in the past to make a fictionalized film of Crowhurst’s story, Deep Water is being produced as a documentary, a form very much in vogue.

“There’s hunger for that sort of thing,” said Mr Rothwell, who pointed out that a fictionalized account would necessarily involve shooting people on their own at sea, which is very difficult.

“They end up talking to inanimate objects like coconuts,” he said.

With a documentary, he could include first hand testimony from people – competitors, family, race organizers - and they have accumulated twenty-four hours of studio based interviews in the UK.

“This is not just about a guy who finds himself in this situation, but how he got there. The point is to find out who Donald is and why what happened to him did. Somebody said the story is like watching a car crash in slow motion, and I think that’s right,” said Mr Rothwell.

“It’s a compelling story because it has a mythic structure to it. It’s someone reaching just beyond themselves, and plunging deeper and deeper to get out of the situation that is snowballing out of control.”

The story was made legendary in the book, The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, which was first published in 1970 and reprinted in 2001.

“It is an extraordinary book, a very exciting read, but was not the only source for us. There is an enormous amount of archive material, including nine hours of his own recording on the boat, plus news articles, and 3,000 Sunday Times photos.”

He also wanted to work closely with Donald’s family to get a rounded figure of the man, to move away from Donald the cheat and focus on the circumstances that surrounded the tragedy.

In order to talk to people who had first-hand involvement in the story, Mr Rothwell and his film crew - Director of Photography Nina Kellgren and Camera Assistant Jamie Hammond - went to Rio Salado in Argentina, before traveling to Cayman Brac.

Rio Salado is an isolated spot 100 miles from Buenos Aires, where Crowhurst stopped briefly for repairs, an act that would have disqualified him from the race.

“At that point, I don’t think he had decided whether to retire or whether to fake the journey. Possibly, he still had thoughts of continuing.”

They found and interviewed two coastguards, Santiago Franchessi and Cristobal Dupuy who had helped Crowhurst. There had been a language barrier, so the Argentineans had found a French man Hector Salvati to communicate to Crowhurst in French. The film crew had found Salvati’s daughter, Maria, who had been seventeen at the time.

“They all seemed to like him, though clearly he was quite changeable and clearly worried about word getting out that he was there. He seemed to say both that he was in the race and winning it, and also telling the truth.

“One of Donald’s problems was that he found it hard to make the decision to give up, so he never really made it. He keeps his options open, which lands him in a terrible mess.”

For Mr Rothwell, the research involved with making this film has been fascinating.

“It’s a really enigmatic story with an element of the Marie Celeste. The more you look into it, the less answers you have as to who Donald is. It’s like a puzzle, a mystery. There are no easy answers to what happened to him or to his state of mind.”

He pointed out that other competitors were even less experienced, notably Chay Blythe, who later became a legendary yachtsman, but in 1968 did not know how to sail. Blythe was at least able to make the decision to give up, but said in some ways it would have been easier to go on and die than to do so.

“Being out at sea, the lack of sleep, being on your own will send you very deeply into yourself. Donald says on tape that this would exploit any weakness you have,” noted Mr Rothwell.

Deep Water is also a story of publicity, spin and hype, and how much of your own publicity you believe, he said.

“The race was like the first reality TV show, but in print media form.” He doesn’t believe that Crowhurst would have attempted the race with the boat and himself so unprepared with out the huge media attention given to the race.

“You get a certain type of character in a certain situation coming together with disastrous consequences,” he said. However, he thought that in many ways Crowhurst was a visionary with good ideas about boat design.

These days, trimarans are generally used in round the world races, but at that time people on the whole were skeptical. Crowhurst was just in the wrong moment of history for his own ideas, he said.

There was a time when there was an interest in transporting the Electron back to Teignmouth in Devon where it started out, but Mr Rothwell believes that the idea of it dissolving into the landscape on Cayman Brac is more fitting.

Deep Water is Mr Rothwell’s first feature. His recent credits include The Late George Shaw for Channel 4's Art Show, two short films in the Modern Painters series for Channel 4 and Fact Plus Fiction a 30-minute documentary for Channel 4/Arts Council.

He has produced and executive produced documentary, news and drama for the BBC, Carlton and Channel 4 and played a lead role in establishing the First Light scheme, a UK Film Council initiative for young filmmakers.
Deep Water is a Pathé Pictures, UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund and FilmFour presentation of an APT Films and Stir Fried Films co-production. The producers are Jonny Persey and Al Morrow of APT Films. Pathé Distribution will release theatrically in the UK, with international sales handled by Pathé Pictures International.

Back...