When the yachtsman Donald Crowhurst set out from Teignmouth, Devon, on 31 October 1968, as the last of nine competitors to enter the Sunday Times Golden Globe race for solo, non-stop circumnavigation, he might have had many possible goals in mind. There was the financial security that the £5,000 prize would bring to him and his family; the glory of going down in history – along with the newly knighted Francis Chichester – as one of Britain’s most heroic seafarers; the publicity and commercial success that would accrue to his invention, the Navicator (forerunner of today’s GPS in some ways). But there was something else that he could not possibly have foreseen: that his voyage – conceived in hubris and optimism, ending in tragedy – would turn out to be the inspiration for quite so many books, plays, TV programmes, artworks, musical works and, in particular, films over the next 50 years.
This year two new retellings of the tale reach cinema screens: The Mercy, James Marsh’s big-budget offering starring Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz, and the smaller, leaner Crowhurst, made by the maverick British horror director Simon Rumley, with Justin Salinger in the lead role. By viewing them side by side, and looking back at earlier adaptations, we can perhaps start to understand the enduring appeal of this story for film-makers: although there remain doubts, in my mind, as to whether you can really capture the essence of Crowhurst’s downfall on screen.
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