Deep Water (2006) - The Golden Globe Race and Donald Crowhurst Documentary

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] we are all human beings and we have dreams this voyage was dawned [Music] for him it was the adventure there may have been an element he wanted fame and glory he wasn't averse to taking risks but when you're alone just you and the ocean it's the whole of your universe it's totally indifferent it's there waiting for you if you make a slip then imagination is the danger it's no longer about heroes and adventures at sea it's about isolation and the delicate mechanism of the mind [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it was this new elizabethan age it was the beatles it was sexual freedom freedom of the seas it caught the imagination francis chichester on board gypsy mark 4 is now inside of home only 15 miles from plymouth the end of his epic round-the-world voyage thousands of people have been pouring into the city they're waiting for their first clip to the man who set out nine months and 33 000 miles ago there were signs there was noise it was mayhem you stood and watched and let it wash over you chichester had done single-handed circumnavigation and brought his vessel back home stirring stuff boy's own stuff [Music] [Applause] chichester started the ball rolling people were looking for what was the new challenge what's the next frontier chichester stopped halfway he pulled into australia and did quite serious refits i thought that's it one thing have to be done go around the world single-handed but non-stop the general public got into the spirit of it and newspapers as well of course the sunday times came up with the idea of non-stop race around the world [Music] there could be no greater challenge the first part down to the south atlantic was fairly kind but then your troubles started once around at the cape of good hope you were into the roaring forties that endless band of storms that circled the world then thousands of miles later you pass south of australia new zealand and across the rest of the pacific to cape hall the seas became narrow there and as they funneled together they grew wilder then up past the falkland islands across the equator back into the north atlantic and you're on your way home in the spring of 1968 some of the world's most experienced sailors began to gather in the ports of britain they were stepping forward as contenders in the greatest endurance test of all time this wasn't a race in the normal sense of the word you could leave whenever you liked but you had to leave before october the 31st to avoid the really severe winter weather at cape horn the first man to do it would get the golden blue the boat that went around fastest would get the big prize of five thousand pounds this was something that human hadn't yet attempted to do first of all we didn't know if a boat could take it secondly there was considerable doubt if a human could take it a psychiatrist said that a human would go mad if they tried to do it we're talking about ten months of loneliness but the more people told me it wasn't possible i couldn't do it the more i was convinced i could do it the one i thought would prove real competition was bernabeu tessier he was highly experienced bernardian poet philosopher [Music] [Music] the french adventurer bernard martissie and the british merchant marine captain robin knox johnson were among nine men announced in the final lineup each knew the winners would earn their place in history they were proper seamen experienced sailors and then there was the mystery man don crowhurst what sort of attitude of mind does a single-handed sailor have to have i think one's psychology has to be fairly stable and one has to be constantly aware of the risks one is running which [Music] need not necessarily be much greater i'm gonna run off any second [Music] i just thought it's too enormous to take on something like that i didn't give it some serious thought but there is a moment when an opportunity arises and if you don't grasp it that's it the first time i saw him went to party at my flat i thought what wonderfully warm vigorous and lively person he was i had a red dress on and he immediately said whose husband did you arrive with he started telling my fortune and he said you're going to marry an impossible man but you're going to be greatly loved that was a ploy i'm sure he may have used it with several others but it worked [Music] don started his own small electronics firm making navigational aids they're very very slow selling but we were able to eat from it it didn't bother us very much that we couldn't have a very exotic life but really we were skinned as it were things were difficult and the business was struggling my father was at a stage of his life where he needed to take on a challenge that would show the skills that he had and the abilities that he had which he had somehow felt frustrated unable to show in his business [Music] my father had grown up with kipling and stories adventure and of heroes overcoming challenges [Applause] [Music] churches had achieved something on a heroic scale i was recognized for it he had performed tremendous feat that everybody could see and admire in a sense my father wanted to take on that role and take on that persona this was the greatest challenge possible it grabbed my father made him almost compelled him to take part [Music] he asked me how i felt about it and i said well if you can raise the money i think you deserve it [Music] i didn't think he would raise the money but all of a sudden the thing took on its own momentum [Music] many of the competitors didn't have that long to get a boat ready but crowheast was starting from scratch don chose a trimaran he started off purely concentrating on the idea that a multi-hull was fast and that he could win and the idea was he could win his head was full of ideas advanced technology what he could do if this was part of his great visionary dream really it was going to be an innovative and advanced vessel equipped with all the latest electronic devices that would make it better would make it safer and would enable him to sail faster that was the idea then dom went off to find some money donald had tried a number of careers but they'd come to nothing and he wanted more he believed in himself he was inventive he had real brains he had a great deal of charm [Music] he had read avidly of these long distance exploits and he could talk the talk the nearest you get to a transatlantic route is is the southerner all he needed was someone to put up the money and he carried along an entrepreneur caravan dealer stanley best it really was an exciting venture and i'm not an adventurous person so far as i'm concerned but it was interesting and compelling to join in but the pedals of sponsorship are enormous stanley bess knew nothing about sailing but as a hard-headed businessman he wanted a contract stanley best made my father sign an agreement if he dropped out before the race began or dropped out early on in the race he would be forced to buy the boat back in effect my father would be bankrupt [Music] the house he lived in would have to be sold he was gambling everything he had staked everything on being successful in the race everything depended on it as the construction of crowhurst's revolutionary boat began his rivals one by one were setting sail with a prize for the fastest voyage as well as the first man home the men were free to leave at any time so long as they sailed by the race deadline october the 31st [Music] i think there was some similarities between us and astronauts people were just beginning to go round the moon at that time in fact the first trip around the moon there was a lot of interest in what happened to people when they suddenly shoved up clear of the earth and i suppose they looked upon us the same way you know we're basically in a small capsule we're setting off to go around the world it's extremely dangerous anyone who goes to see and says they don't feel fear is a liar of course you're frightened [Music] [Music] she was not very happy that it's always a case of having to sacrifice one thing for another you have to choose between your life and a woman and it's got to be your own life isn't it without hesitation around the world without stopping single-ended it's an enormous challenge it's incredibly demanding no one had done it before anyone who tries it just for the money or the prestige is going to break his neck there was this extraordinary pretty ribbon that i had to pull and it would swing the bottle into the hull it had to be smashed by hand and of course that got all sorts of connotations in sailing circles but donald wanted this thing he wanted to have a go i thought well if anybody has a chance he has a chance because he is so innovative he'll do it [Music] this was a classic tale of english daring do on a shoestring a homegrown british hero there will be tv deals there will be newspaper deals i mean it's sort of that feeding frenzy starts rodney my boss was a businessman as well as a journalist he was a dickensian character the artful dodger perhaps even a fagin he immediately saw the potential to make a lot of money the press agent's job is to get hold of the package which could be as dull as an l10 box many people who do great things are often as personalities rather dull so you've got to dress it up bit christmassy so that it appears attractive donald decided originally to start down beyond penzance but here in tinworth we have a fairly active publicity setup and we persuaded him to come 150 miles backwards to start here and enjoy the delights of tidmouth all the hoteliers immediately saw the potential publicity wise was the first outing for his revolutionary boat it should have taken three days to get there it took two weeks it was pretty embarrassing we've been promoting crowhurst as the dark horse of the sea we initially thought that this was a man who had made transatlantic voyages he wasn't he'd messed about in boats but he was almost a weekend sailor but everyone loved the idea of this boy's own hero we wanted him to succeed the public the town of tinmus and fleet street wanted this to work but crowhurst was now dangerously behind schedule all but one of the other sailors were underway he'd lost any chance of winning the trophy for first man home and to win the 5 000 cash prize he'd have to sail the world faster than any of the races ahead of him through a southern ocean that was already claiming casualties jay blythe and john ridgeway had been knocked out of the race big seas had seen them off it was the first inkling that this was not just an adventure but a very dangerous undertaking don was showing a lot of courage he was well aware of the risks but he felt he was capable of of getting through it here now was a publicity machine at full blast i was there as a journalist i was producing a film i could see that the schedule was tight but when i got to tinworth it was chaos total cows it took far longer for you to come around from the east coast than you had originally planned what sort of pressures has this put on you as a result oh it's a week less for means less time you know should you have that much [Music] tighter i thought there's chaos here you know that's worrying around this side the bbc people were watching it you could see they saw this wasn't how it should be [Music] i told the cameraman this is a voice it's not going to happen it's not going to succeed just film what is really happening film the chaos of it all which he did [Music] with three or four days to go there was so much still to be done by so many different people who got in each other's way he lost track of what was happening on boat i've got to have the equipment of course his tonight it won't be on the boat if it's not put on tonight at that stage people begin to say to him are you sure everything's all right have you really considered what you're doing [Music] he was getting more and more exhausted more rattled he was bright and cheerful for the interviews but the minute the camera stopped his face dropped because essentially it's a personal story and an effective do you feel you're up against it with the time limit [Music] i don't think there are too many things that are of any importance that will remain undone most of it is is taken care of and i think that i'm not lacking in any great uh respect you know there's nothing essential that's missing the last day in tinder claire and i took him off walk along the seafront he just sat there with drawn and trembling saying it isn't ready the boat isn't ready and as we walked back we met stanley best a sponsor and rodney holworth who stood to make a lot of money if he succeeded and nothing if it failed so when he told them he couldn't go the boat wasn't ready they said donald tomorrow it's october the 31st the very last day to go you have to go what do you think of the weather tomorrow i would think this time of year i'll be southwesterly wind it was unstoppable there was so much at stake how could he say i can't go at the least he faced ridicule and embarrassment what would he be in his own eyes if he didn't go [Music] now return to tinmuth in south devon on the last day on which donald crowhurst could start on his run the world point the rules of the sunday times race say that all competitors must have started by the end of october and at three o'clock this afternoon after innumerable delays start mr crowhurst did how many [Music] i'm awfully sorry [Music] i remember going on a small robot with my brothers and my sister and my father kissing us goodbye it wasn't a feeling of sadness so much as excitement [Music] but i suppose that there was a feeling also at the back of my mind well you don't quite know what's going to happen next [Music] the children are oblivious to the danger without any doubt and it's just as well really [Music] well she's left him with a the 41-foot driver and tinmuth electron at the helm donald crowhurst this 36 year old engineer who even at this last stage hasn't given up the idea of recording the fastest time yes he's got this yellow one-piece suit on and and still his tie and out here too is his wife claire and four young children they're all very small chatting bye-bye daddy something's gone wrong out there he's taking a tour game there's something i think has gone wrong with the sale she's being towed back oh this is a tragedy the pointy bag of the top of the mast was fouled the stairs wouldn't go up yeah [Music] there was a delay of only two hours by five o'clock mr crowhurst's being towed out a mile from the shore and a cannon shot marked the official targeted race around the world all i could see was this tiny figure and what seemed to be my new boat disappearing over the horizon [Music] nowadays with gps you can pinpoint your position to within a few feet on any portion of the glue in the 60s that just wasn't the case don crowhurst sailed over the horizon and effectively into oblivion i don't think people understand what it was like in those days pre-special foods pre-weather forecasts pre-satellites solitude [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you can't imagine how intensely i was living how good it is to be on your own you climb up and you look back at your boat there is a sea the wind the sound of the water above all the beauty of the book searching for war on your own you can discover who you really are [Music] [Applause] bernard martissie had now been at sea for two months he was sailing faster than any of his rivals averaging speeds of 120 miles a day and closing rapidly on the race leader robin knox johnson behind them at the back of the field of seven men was donald crowhurst the voyage he'd staked his future on was finally underway i've been at sea now very nearly 14 days and i'm on my way to a rendezvous with cape horn that explains why i'm here in the north atlantic in the middle of november making tape recordings in a small boat and i wanted his thoughts so i got him a 16 millimeter camera and a tape recorder like in timmouth when the camera was on he was the bold outgoing confident figure he was playing the character of the long distance sailor the thing about single handing is it puts a great deal of pressure on the man it explores his weaknesses with a penetration that very few other occupations can manage don was always totally positive and confident on the surface but the log revealed a totally different story november the 5th tuesday rachel's birthday happy birthday rachel hell of a morning for me though i was feeling pleased with myself when i noticed bubbles were blowing out of the port for a hatch all the evidence was that the compartment was full of water november the seventh thursday saw that more screws had fallen out of the self-steering gear that's forgot now the cockpit hatch has been leaking and has flooded the engine compartment and electrics this bloody boat is just falling to pieces there were a lot of hatches on these outer hulls and they were all leaking while using these calm waters you could walk out to them and bail them out of the bucket once he got into the southern ocean the boat would be swept by waves there was no way he could empty them the hulls would fill and he would drown november the 15th racked by the growing awareness that i must soon decide whether or not i can go on in the face of the actual situation i think doubt started to set in when reality started to set in [Applause] and the reality wasn't quite as perfect as the this idea why ideas are dangerous [Music] as the boat stands in its present condition my chances of survival would not i think be better than 50 50. he knew the risk of going to the southern ocean was very very high indeed crowhurst was now heading into that ocean in a leaking boat he had to bail by hand and confirmation of just how dangerous those seas could be came later that november i'd heard about ridgeway and blythe next year as i got was off new zealand and i learned about king and bill king got turned over by a big wave of south africa and lost his mast [Music] there was italian the stress made him so ill he had a stomach ulcer there was another french sailor he had 27 days of most appalling weather and he packed it in it came down to the last four tetley knox johnson martial and don gruhers only four the odds were shortening on crowhurst all the time but his progress was painfully slow his only communication with land was through occasional telephone calls patched via radio operators and through morse code cables and the cables catalogued the problems crowhurst was averaging barely 60 miles a day half the speed of motion in a boat that would not stay afloat in heavy seas the pressure was building if don went forward he was committing suicide but financial situation was desperate if he came back he was ruined time and money if one considers time only the thing to do is turn back now but money this area is the most worrying if i stop i will disappoint a lot of people stanley best most important rodney hallworth the folks at tynmouth in the final analysis if the whole thing goes quite sour the business bankrupt and the house sold i would have claire and the children still what a bloody awful decision to chuck it in at this stage what a bloody awful decision [Music] this was the point in mid-november at which his instinct should have told him that it was right to give up and he should come back to us but somehow he couldn't bring himself to do that [Music] donald was brought up in british india home was wonderful the house full of animals [Music] he loved his father dearly but i think he had quite an isolated childhood there were always people around but he was isolated [Music] his mother regarded england as el dorado and they came back and found they didn't like it at all they had little more than 5000 pounds and they thought they'd be able to live off that for a while but as things turned out the money went in weeks and literally found themselves destitute one day his father just keeled over with a heart attack and that was it donald was about 15. he had seen the consequences of financial disaster on his own family he knew what the implications might be for us he would have had a real emotional gut reaction to do whatever he possibly could to avoid that maybe he could find a way out of this situation every time he woke up it was the same problem he got no peace he couldn't walk away from it if he came back he was ruined if he went forward he was dead is there a third option [Music] [Music] [Applause] there was a third option [Applause] a very interesting third option [Music] suddenly everything changed now we were all excited he was a man who was going so slowly and now he was setting record speeds [Music] people have been cynical people have been disinterested felt differently now we just had this enormous confidence in my father that he could do what he set out to achieve and then suddenly there he was it was really coming true this is vindication on a grand scale 243 miles in one day the new sailing record and of course rodney is yes i've always believed in my boy all this answer rodney hulbert as a good fleet street journalist never let the facts get in the way of a good story he would add a little color and add quite a distance to a record screwhurst was setting so donald was passing messages to rodney and rodney was embellishing them for fleet street in the middle of december a month and a half into his journey crowhurst's reported position advanced rapidly towards the southern ocean suddenly it seemed that donald crowhurst was a contender in the contest for the fastest voyage nigel tetley bernard motissier and robin knox johnson were now his only remaining rivals [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] what do you want to do when the voyage is over hot bath steak egg and chips with uh well new boiled potatoes fresh peas a beautiful juicy sirloin steak and the first thing with a pint of english beer crust i'm missing this beer [Music] i think it might have started again [Music] knowing dawn he had a playful nature and game playing would come naturally to him he started playing games [Music] maybe he just thought right give them some boost back home i'll lift their spirits and they all think something's happening here [Music] my father was starting to claim that he had sailed further than he actually had he took the decision to begin charting his actual positions in a second log book crohurst knew the race judges might ask to see the log book of any sailor who made it home so in this second log he began to keep a secret record of his true journey while gradually the cables he sent back to london mapped out the story of a fake journey i suspect that he might have said well let's carry on a bit that little water pass under the bridge and then the game develops crowhurst may only have intended to exaggerate his progress before retiring from the race with a little pride restored but that first decision became a trap of its own [Music] the option of pulling out of the race became even more formidable because the difference between where people thought my father was and where he actually was became greater and greater so to pull in a support would bring home the fact that he was not at all where he was supposed to be that he was much much further behind that's where he got trapped wasn't it he'd made a mistake whatever fears he had he had to go through with it he couldn't go back he couldn't go home [Music] around christmas time my father managed to get through on the telephone to my mother he couldn't tell her the problems that he was facing she thought he was doing well and that her job was to convince him that she was coping they were trying to protect each other we tried to have a good christmas but there was still a great sense of something missing [Music] i remember one of the children sitting on the staircase crying that he wanted his daddy and that i think brought it home to me what a dreadful thing we had done [Music] there is a spirituality about this place [Music] and about the time [Music] christmas that does tend to make one a little bit melancholy and one thinks of one's friends and family and you know that they're thinking of you and the sense of separation is somehow increased by the loneliness what about the children how are they reacting they're all right they're healthy enough about it one of them has nightmares and this is a bit worrying he walks in his sleep and he shouts and he sees his father and because he can't he sees him but he can't communicate with him and he can't feel the warmth of his personality about he worries about this of course but the the others are very blase about it and they they think oh daddy's going to win the golden globe you know [Music] early in the new year a newspaper photographed claire with the wives of tetley and moitissie they were christened the sea widows for weeks now crowhurst's publicity agents had tried to report news of his progress but after the cable claiming the world speed record his messages were rare and hard to decipher there were many telegrams from him where we couldn't put out a story because even stretching our imaginations we couldn't decipher we couldn't figure out what he was talking about they were cryptic beyond belief one came through off brazil well where of brazil [Music] sometime in the middle of january i think it was the 18th of the 19th we got a message saying he was having trouble and in future we would not be receiving any messages from him um panic rodney was facing the prospect of no information at a crucial stage in the race crowhurst's last cable claimed he was 500 miles into the southern ocean and closing on tetley ahead of them martier and knox johnson were approaching the most dangerous part of the course the last stretch of the southern ocean before cape horn cape horn becomes fixed in your mind once i'm around cape horn i can turn north and get out of this bastard of a place because it is a bastard of a place imagine yourself in something about the size of a small truck and coming towards you as a 12-story high building that is the size of the waves down there a great cave has a soul with very soft very violent shadows and colors a soul as smooth as a choice as hard as a criminals and that is why we go one forgets everything seeing only the play of the boat with the sea the player of the sea around the boat leaving aside everything not essential to that game one has to be careful though not to go further than necessary to the depths of the game and that is the hard part not going too far [Applause] you look out on this wild landscape stretching away as far as the eye can see streaks of spume blown down the face of these immense waves and froth white foam sending a great flurry of spray and heavy water all over everything and it's all tremendously exciting and um tremendous challenge of course crowhurst was drifting off the coast of south america preparing a record of his false journey film and audio tapes that would be broadcast on his return in two months time the race route would bring the other sailors around cape horn and past him at that point he could slip in beside them and sail for home until then he could only wait he'd stopped all radio communication to avoid detection his isolation was complete there you are you're alone on your boat just you and the ocean it's the whole of your universe it stretches to the horizon it's totally indifferent and it just accentuates the isolation from that moment the time bomb was ticking he had no longer one enemy which was the sea he had himself this problem of imagination and the delicate mechanism keeping a sort of watch on sales by night alone the rigging size a sigh of cosmic sorrow for weeping doves that die may be tomorrow on 12.7 by 10 to the five irradiated olive trees aside to fill man's soul with melancholy waves sweep away my melancholy [Music] then in the last week of february crohurst discovered he had another problem his float splits he needs help but he's not where he's supposed to be he's not in the southern ocean he's just off the coast of brazil this is the trap he's in if crowhurst broke radio silence to call for help his radio transmitter would give away his true position [Music] for seven weeks now his family had heard nothing it just became more and more apparent that something should have been heard by now and it hadn't been and people began to fear for the worst you think well i didn't stop him and i should have done [Music] the last night at 10 months he did weep for a long time in our bedroom [Music] i knew that it would be very easy to say no don't go that's the awful thing you know you know you could stop it and yet you know that it could be disastrous if you did it's a bit like children who know that if you squeeze them too tight they'll do the exact opposite but you can't ever know the time which road is going to be the right one i remember in in tin mother shortly before my father set sail listening in the hotel to the sound of a gail [Music] [Music] i hadn't realized before just how dangerous the sea could be and i remember lying in my bed in the hotel and listening to these huge winds and great waves crashing i'm thinking that's the sort of weather that he's going to have to be coping with in his boat [Music] march the 4th immediate problems one established visual contact rio salado entrance 30 miles 2. repair float no proper materials large sheet ply screws glue also require oats meths rice vindaloo paste me [Music] he knew what it was like to come in contact with people again and they responded to him with warmth and yet why he didn't telephone him is an overwhelming question he must have known we were desperate for news but he didn't he didn't communicate at that stage which is to me quite a shattering blow i think if you were in the real world at that stage you would have picked up the telephone and said look i've had to stop because landing is a flagrant act for disqualifying himself from the race he was slowly but surely getting himself exposed he made his first mistake that mistake was very likely to be revealed particularly if the coast guards had noted his presence in why didn't he stop then why did he go back out to sea i can only assume he was half in and half out of the real world at this stage as crowhurst sailed away from land the other sailors were coming round the horn and racing north for europe and home bernard motissiere had now been alone at sea for nearly six months and the isolation was beginning to affect him profoundly after cape horn i felt i knew i didn't want to come back you see it didn't seem worth it i could feel it i didn't say so to anyone i didn't dare to i hardly dared admit it to myself [Music] around the world without stopping eight months alone completely alone with all that that entails it had never been done before everything revolved around that world alone the nervous tension food exhaustion my all outlook things which mattered at the start didn't matter at all the rules of the game had changed now the rules within me had changed [Music] navigator could be hey i'll tell you something are you a direct general of the bbc is probably slipping some buckshot into his 12 more as it were oh why should i worry to fill up the space maybe do you see [Music] but i think i'll just have another little swing of this but here for crowhurst after four months the waiting was coming to an end and like morticie the prospect of his return was troubling him within days the root of his fake voyage would come past his actual position he had to plan how and where to rejoin the race when to break radio silence above all he had to prepare the written evidence of a circumnavigation once it arrived successfully the panel of judges would want to see his logbooks they would want proof that he had been round the world he would have to fake his position for every day he was supposed to be in the southern ocean that was an amazingly difficult thing to do that would create enormous pressure he might think well i don't think i'd go through with it by this stage i think don genuinely felt that winning the race wasn't part of the plot all he wanted really was to come in quietly as the man who came forth nobody wants to see their logbooks not too much scrutiny the interest in them wouldn't last long don was very much at risk in his game here but he just wanted to go back he was coming home [Music] [Applause] one morning rodney calls into the office and said i he's back who's back and it's donald crowhurst is back there's a phone call from porter's head saying crowhurst is back on the air ronnie hallworth phoned me very early one morning he said my face is covered in shaving cream but i've had a message from donald saying he's safe and well and on his way home i i don't know i just didn't know what to do quite frankly i'm absolutely stunned i i thought that when i heard i i would go absolutely crazy and i would go up and buy lots of champagne and you know do all sorts of mad things but at the moment i think i just want to keep the news of it to myself and resolve it before i i completely lose my head the feeling that the whole world was different didn't matter there wasn't enough money for this or that you know everything was different all of a sudden then i i picked up the telephone to tell a friend and suddenly i was absolutely overwhelmed i couldn't i couldn't talk for a long time it was as if a switch had been thrown suddenly this elation not only was he alive and well but he was actually in still very much in the competition our faith is deserved he's back with us crowhurst turned for home slipping in behind nigel tetley who'd passed just a hundred miles to the east of him everyone believed maurtessier was ahead of them chasing robin knox johnson to the finish until a message arrived in paris removed after seven months at sea and barely six weeks from home martessier abandoned the race and turned south again he was sailing on around the world a second time [Music] i do not know how to explain to francoise and the children my need to continue towards the pacific to be at peace i know i'm right i feel it deeply i know exactly where i'm going how could they understand that it is so simple but it can't be explained in words the pictures of my children blur before my eyes so god knows i love them here [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] morning of tuesday april the 22nd falmouth awaits the arrival of robin knox johnson aboard his 32-foot ketchup now only a few miles away from the finish will become the first man to sail around the world on his own non-stop a journey which has lasted 312 days crowds now pouring in all around the formal coast binoculars the telescopes are out as his bows crossed the line a cannon should be fired and the voyage will be over there he is look at the smile he really is enjoying this this is tremendous and the cannon is gone and robin knox johnson and sue haley have sailed non-stop around the world [Music] it was all a bit of a dream you look at all these people and saying i've done this this thing that people said you couldn't do i've done this now i don't have to come yell and scream and shout about it it's inside robin knox johnston came out onto the balcony to acknowledge the cheer he's the first ever to round the world alone non-stop he's averaged 92 miles a day on this marathon voyage but it's not enough to win him the cash prize for the fastest time that nigel tetley and donald crowhurst is still battling it out for in the atlantic all eyes now turned to the contest for the fastest voyage either nigel tetley or donald crowhurst was about to become the most famous man in britain right the game playing is over we're back to real life now how are we going to match the two not a very easy thing to do whilst he was out on his own that's one thing but he's now going to continue playing his character he's got a role to play and he mustn't drop a line i think my effort will be faster than chichester's and should be quite fast enough to give me the sunday times race so i'm feeling fairly blocked fairly chuffed with myself the whole plan in reality depended on tetley coming in first with the fastest circumnavigation then his logbooks would be closely examined while donald kohs the books wouldn't need to be closely examined the shortlist just to run her up he was going strong and it was looking great then we get to the telegram that there's no chance of catching tetley we're thinking disappointment but not devastation as far as we're concerned our boy's done good he's gone through some of the loneliest toughest seas in the world even the most skeptical folks were saying he has come good and fair play to it it was bloody marvelous and then suddenly out of the blue sunk [Music] we heard nigel tetley had been rescued i heard that before i heard that his boat had gone down [Music] and finished it basically he was going to win donald was not stupid man he knew what it would mean he couldn't glide into port and fade away he knew that everything would be scrutinized there was going to be a committee of reception what did you think about when you went around the horn everything would be verified you tell us about some of the problems that you found on this voyage don knew very well that it would end up in total humiliation could you do it again that's not an option you go through and he's running out of options by now [Music] when i was five years old i knew all about god he was an old man who would punish me if i was naughty by the time i was 20 i decided there was no reason to expect any assistance from god if he existed at all man was evading his responsibility by constantly looking to god for assistance the cosmic integral the sum of man adds up to nothing in the days after tetly's sinking crowhurst repeatedly tried to get a call through to claire but his radio transmitter was the transmitter failing at that point was something that plagued him he became almost obsessed with fixing it he wanted to talk to my mother mike zulu uniform whiskey calling jbc3 i have heard nothing i have heard nothing i think he just wanted human contact that he felt would be warm and responsive whatever he had to say he could have trusted me but there's nothing he could do the close similarities between sailing a small boat and living you start off unprepared long journey ahead of you that you think will never end and you go through a series of triumphs and disasters and suddenly you realize that what's done is done the mistakes you've made stand forever there were a hundred thousand people expected to meet him a hundred thousand to say hello to your new wave there was going to be erasmus there would be triumphal processions it was euphoric this almost outdoes chichester we're hoping for it to be a great gala affair newspaper men from abroad they're all booked in hotels a 1 000 arrangements had been made to welcome him home it was beginning to build up to be really lovely it was so close to the end everybody was in such high spirits all of a sudden everything was all right his dream it was there it was going to come true everything a hero could want but he knew it was false on tuesday the 24th of june crowhurst turned away from england and let his boat drift through the weed-infested waters of the mid-atlantic sargasso sea then he opened a log book and began to write he called it his philosophy the explanation of our troubles is that cosmic beings are playing games with us [Music] during his lifetime each man plays cosmic chess against the devil god is playing with one set of rules and the devil with the other exactly opposite set of rules the shameful secret of god the trick he used because the truth would hurt too much is that there is no good or evil only truth [Music] he was in the most extraordinary feeling of i failed everything there was nobody there to talk to he tried to contemplate ways of dealing with this race and the money and the family back home and eventually his brain said enough no more do we go on clinging to the idea that god made us or realize that it lies within us to make god by learning to manipulate the space-time continuum man will become god and disappear from the physical universe as we know it somehow he just had given up on his family we had vanished from his mind at that stage mrs crohurt unless he sinks your husband's going to win the 5 000 pounds for the fastest time what will this mean to you and your family very little change in our way of living i should think um he won't sing i don't think i have become a second generation cosmic being i am conceived in the room of nature in my own mind in the womb of the universe you've told me that you haven't had any fears during the voyage but what about when he returns yes i'm a bit concerned about the change of personality i think it's inevitable that he would be a very different person somebody who faced every day as though it was a new danger and a new feeling of excitement i was forced to admit that nature forces on cosmic beings the only sin they are capable of the sin of concealment it is a small sin for a man to commit but it is a terrible sin for a cosmic being huge living totally in his internal world he's invented in his mind a relationship between him and the universe he's found refuge there in a sense i am what i am and i see the nature of my offense i will only resign this game if you will agree that on the next occasion that this game is played it will be played according to the rules that are devised by my great god [Music] it is finished it is finished it is the mercy 11 hours 15 minutes no seconds it is the end of my game the truth has been revealed and it will be done as my family require me to do it eleven hours 20 minutes 40 seconds there is no reason for harmful [Music] is [Music] i'd been out for a walk and i came back with the dog my sister was with the children and she said um the boat's been found then i became aware there were several complete strangers on the front lawn and a couple of police cars just my instant reaction is get the children out of here you can imagine the atmosphere the feeling of shock claire didn't feel she had the courage at the time [Music] to tell children so i went up my father's boat had been found but he wasn't in it it was so different from the homecoming that we'd expected it was just like this is the wrong story this is this is not what's supposed to be happening this is um it can't be a british cargo ship found crowhurst's boat drifting in the mid-atlantic 700 miles from land [Music] [Applause] a surprise development tonight over the missing yachtsman donald crowhurst prohest's trimaran timmoth electron was found drifting and deserted he'd been a competitor in the round the world yacht race organized by the sunday times the pale blue weather beaten moran which was a certain winner of the race was in good condition the mystery of his disappearance therefore is still inexplicable the film and his tape recordings may provide other clues but for the moment this lonely yacht without her lonely captain is not giving up any of her secrets [Music] when the boat was brought ashore in the caribbean crowhurst's press agent rodney hallworth was there to meet it i went into the captain's cabin and i remember saying to him that um i don't suppose captain we'll ever know the end of this saga this riddle and i thought his face dropped a little and he said well i i think we do resolve and he led me over to his desk he unlocked a drawer and took out the logs we decided there and then that we would never tell anybody for the rest of our lives what had happened in the last hours of croho's life [Music] in fact rodney hallworth had already sold the logbooks to a london newspaper and piece by piece the truth of donald crowhurst's voyage was uncovered rodney halbert stumped through the front door and while i was sort of staring in amazement he said donald didn't sail around the world and he committed suicide and i think that is the most appalling thing to do to anyone i will never forget those words but that was all worth [Music] no one likes to be conned we were sharp newspaper man any condos kept us for me it's all one regret i never did speak to claire again i never could face her i felt i was party to it we were all party to it if only i had said you don't go don is crazy i should have said that he made the wrong decisions in a way he turned the initial difficulties into something much worse into a disaster for himself and for the rest of us but he was trying to do the best he could to get back to us and that's all he could do he everything angered me about time anger just boiled over and i blamed everyone and everything i feel that i failed i didn't stop him from going and i didn't help him when he needed it but people need to dream i think don't need that and he had a right to have it the crowd criticized him the crowd mocked him and i didn't want that to happen when somebody has risked and failed and when somebody has fallen from the tightrope they've been walking on somebody has to pick them up and give them a burial the best thing is that a friend should do that [Music] don wanted to make a success of his life he just wanted to see a bright future for himself and his family [Music] in my mind i gave him my heroes [Music] buried [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so you

Channel: VASSdesign

Views: 367,046

Keywords: deep water, donald crowhurst, sailing, golden globe, race, sunday times

Id: SiWv12EL4LE

Length: 93min 32sec (5612 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 19 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/jonnohb]

Just finished listening to A Voyage For Madmen. Great book, such an epic story all around.