DOCUMENTARY · 2006
Deep Water
Donald Crowhurst's 1968 Golden Globe - and the slow private collapse of a man at sea.
The other side of the same race Moitessier walked away from. Donald Crowhurst - amateur sailor, failing businessman, out of time and out of money - entered the 1968 Golden Globe aboard the trimaran Teignmouth Electron, radioed false positions while drifting in circles in the Atlantic, and was never seen again. His boat was found abandoned. His logbooks were intact.
Narrated by Tilda Swinton and built from Crowhurst's own film reels and audio tapes, it is the most honest thing ever made about the gap between the voyage you announce and the voyage you can actually sail.
Robin Knox-Johnston, who won the race, gave his prize money to Crowhurst's widow. That detail tells you everything about the sea's actual code.
Watch it with The Long Way as a double feature: two men, one race, two answers to the same silence.