Chicanery on the high seas

10 April 2012

A well-crafted documentary about Donald Crowhurst's abortive attempt to win the single-handed round-the-world yacht race of 1968, Louise Osmond and Jerry Rothwell's film answers every question you might have, except exactly how the sailor died.

We do know that he reached Brazil, could go no further and planned to return to Blighty as if arriving back from the full journey in triumph.

He was in severe financial difficulties after his business had collapsed; the prize would have meant some security for his wife and children.

The film examines the man as intimately as it can with the help of old footage and interviews with his wife, son and friends. Crowhurst was a fascinating character, an amateur yachtsman who became the favourite by fibbing about his true position.

The film, with narration from Tilda Swinton, ably takes us back to a time when such scams could succeed, and to a man who may, at the last moment, have thought better of conning the world and so drowned himself.

Deep Water
Cert: PG

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