Cinema - Deep Water

Deep Water is the true story of Donald Crowhurst, an amateur yachtsman facing financial ruin back in 1968, who risks all on winning the prize money in a yacht race sailing non-stop, single-handedly around the world. He sails off course. He lies. His boat leaks. He makes an illegal stop. He cheats. As luck would have it, he looks certain to win the race. After 243 days at sea, Crowhurst lays out his log books and steps off the side of the boat.

Laughton-based Jerry Rothwell wrote the screenplay and directed the documentary with Louise Osmond. He first came across extracts from Donald Crowhurst's logbooks in a book written by two Sunday Times journalists. “But there's a huge difference between reading extracts and handling the originals. When I first opened them, Crowhurst's fragile logbooks seemed to me still to have the smell of the sea on them. They combine factual narration - his positions and the daily minor incidents at sea, with a 25,000 word philosophical speculation which takes in time travel, God, cosmic beings, mathematics and ethics, and which was written mostly over the final two weeks of his voyage.”

Rothwell remarks how he read the logbooks looking for clues to Crowhurst’s disappearance but they steadfastly refused to give any certainty about what happened.Crowhurst takes you into his thoughts and how he gradually loses touch with everything that was important to him. “Pursuing small details often only leaves you with more questions.