This documentary chronicles the efforts of an amateur to win an around-the-world boating race in the late 1960s. In the wake of Francis Chichester’s successful circumnavigation in 1966–1967, the Sunday Times of London had organized, to great fanfare, a nonstop race with a prize of 5000 pounds. Donald Crowhurst, an electrical engineer with unfulfilled ambitions of grandeur, was one of nine competitors. Under financial pressure, and struggling to live up to the weight of heavy expectations that he had helped to create with his confident air, Chowhurst had a great task from the start, being the only one to design and build his boat from scratch. Practical details are scarce in the movie, but the novel design was intended to help the boat go faster. The movie is hampered by its fusty BBC-style approach as well as the lack of compelling footage, despite the use of recordings by Crowhurst and Bernard Moitessier, the Frenchman who was expected to be a prime competitor. Moitessier, who died in 1994, seems a compelling figure on his own who might have warranted a lengthier profile. He is represented by his widow (as is Crowhurst), and the other competitors are hardly mentioned. It’s not a bad story, but the psychological angle the movie emphasizes would seem better explored in a lengthy article with a few illustrations. The latter-day interviews and re-creations of Crowhurst’s radio transmissions add little visually.
IMDB link
reviewed 9/21/07
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