#Deep water 2006 movie#

Even before he’d docked at Plymouth there was a general realisation, which spread like osmosis throughout the sailing world, that the next step would be to sail around solo without stopping. It all started when Francis Chichester made his historic single-handed circumnavigation in 1966-67 – not the first to do so, by any means, but certainly the fastest up to that point, completing the loop in 226 days with just one stop, in Sydney, to repair his self-steering. And yet, despite the thousands of words written about him, we really know very little more about him than we did 50 years ago.

Whereas many stories of adventures at sea seem to leave the general public cold, the Crowhurst tale continues to fascinate more than 50 years after Teignmouth’s most famous sailor vanished without trace. Long before the latest Hollywood offering it inspired movies, books, plays, art installations, an epic poem and even an opera. Of all the stories I researched, it’s the one that has caught the public imagination most. There was never any doubt the tragic story of Donald Crowhurst would have to be included in any book about madness at sea.Ĭolin Firth stars as Donald Crowhurst in the 2018 film The Mercy. Meanwhile, I carried on writing my book, Off the Deep End, which was published in 2017, and the movie, The Mercy, was released in February 2018. Over the next couple of years, however, the release date for the film was repeatedly postponed – so much so that it became a running topic among Hollywood gossipmongers, who speculated that Crowhurst’s widow Clare had delayed progress, or that it was being held back to tie with the 50th anniversary of the events, or indeed that it might never be released in cinemas and go straight to DVD instead.

#Deep water 2006 movie#

It seemed a lucky coincidence, given that my book would inevitably feature the Crowhurst story, but I assumed the movie would come out long before my book was ready. Several websites published reports of a high-profile British feature starring Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz, and a few surreptitious photos of the cast filming off Teignmouth had been posted online.

It was while I was researching my book about madness at sea in 2015 that I first heard a movie about Donald Crowhurst was in the works.