I was completely unfamiliar with the story of Donald Crowhurst and his quest to win the 1968 single handed around the world race. The video (in 9 parts) is on youtube and quite stunning.
Beautiful and powerful. I just had to share this.
Ed,
I think that you forgot the link. Anyhow, here’s a link that will return the video parts:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Donald+Crowhurst+deep+water+2006&aq=f
– Geoff
I remembered this story from long ago. I was a Sabot sailor in Newport Beach, Cal as a young kid and recall hearing about Crowhurst’s suicide. When I bought my Freedom 30 12 years ago and began singlehanding her I became a fan of the great Moitessier and his decision to abandon the race and sail on. I’m one of those oddballs that can completely relate to his decision. I wish I had one one hundredth of that guy’s skill.
I had heard of the movie Deep Water but never watched it. Thanks so much for posting the link, it was a fantastic documentary.
The fate of Crowhurst’s boat is particularly haunting. She lies broken up, ashore, on Cayman Brac. You can see a rough outline of the boat on Google Earth. Some folks have added pictures of the wreck. They are viewable if you enable the appropriate layer in Google Earth. There’s a stark, tragic quality to the tableau.
The film Deepwater is available on DVD from Amazon.