Deep Water Page #4

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stay afloat in heavy seas.

Winspear:

The pressure was building.

If Don went forward,

he was committing suicide.

But the financial

situation was desperate.

If he came back,

he was ruined.

Donald:

"Time and money:

If one considers

time only,

the thing to do

is turn back now;

but money...

this area is

the most worrying.

If I stop, I will disappoint

a lot of people...

Stanley Best...

most important...

Rodney Hallworth,

the folks at Teignmouth.

In the final analysis,

if the whole thing

goes quite sour,

the business bankrupt

and the house sold,

I would have Clare

and the children still.

What a bloody

awful decision,

to chuck it in

at this stage.

What a bloody

awful decision."

Simon:
This was the point

in mid-November

at which his instincts

should have told him

that it was right to give up

and he should come back to us.

But...

somehow he couldn't

bring himself to do that.

Clare:

Donald was brought up in British India.

Home was wonderful.

The house full

of animals.

He loved

his father dearly.

But I think he had quite

a nice little childhood.

There were always

people around,

but he was isolated.

His mother regarded

England as El Dorado,

and they came back and found

they didn't like it at all.

They had little more

than 5,000

and they thought they'd be able to live

off that for a while.

But as things turned out,

the money went in weeks

and they literally found

themselves destitute.

One day his father just

keeled over with a heart attack

and that was it.

Donald was about 15.

Simon:
He had seen the consequences

of financial disaster

on his own family.

He knew what the implications

might be for us.

He would have had a real

emotional gut reaction

to do whatever

he possibly could to avoid that.

Maybe he could find a way

out of this situation.

Winspear:

Every time he woke up,

it was the same problem.

He got no peace.

He couldn't

walk away from it.

If he came back,

he was ruined.

If he went forward,

he was dead.

Is there

a third option?

There was

a third option...

a very interesting

third option.

Kerr:

Suddenly, everything changed.

Now we were

all excited.

Here was a man

who was going so slowly,

and now he was setting

record speeds.

People who had been cynical,

people who had been disinterested

felt differently now.

Simon:
We just had this enormous

confidence in my father.

He could do what

he set out to achieve.

And then suddenly,

there he was,

and it was really

coming true.

This is vindication

on a grand scale.

243 miles

in one day...

the new sailing record.

And of course, Rodney is,

"Yes, I've always believed in my boy,"

all that sort of stuff.

Kerr:
Rodney Hallworth is a good

Fleet Street journalist...

"Never let the facts get

in the way of a good story."

He would add a little color

and add quite a distance

to the records

Crowhurst was setting.

So Donald was

passing messages

to Rodney,

and Rodney was

embellishing them for Fleet Street.

Swinton:

In the middle of December,

a month and a half

into his journey,

Crowhurst's reported position advanced

rapidly towards the southern ocean.

Suddenly it seemed

that Donald Crowhurst

was a contender in the contest

for the fastest voyage.

Nigel Tetley,

Bernard Moitessier,

and Robin Knox-Johnston were

now his only remaining rivals.

Man:
I wonder what you'll do

when the voyage is over?

Hot bath.

- Man:
Anything else?

- Steak, egg and chips

with new-boiled potatoes,

fresh peas, a beautiful,

juicy, sirloin steak.

But first thing,

a pint of English beer.

Christ, I miss

English beer.

Winspear:

I think it might have started as a game.

Knowing Don,

he had a playful nature...

And game playing would

come naturally to him.

He started

playing games.

Clare:

Maybe he just thought,

"Right, give them

some boost back home.

Lift their spirits..."

"and they'll all think

something's happening here."

Simon:

My father was starting to claim

that he had sailed further

than he actually had.

He took the decision

to begin charting

his actual positions

in a second logbook.

Swinton:
Crowhurst knew the race

judges might ask to see

the logbook of any sailor

who made it home.

So in this second log,

he began to keep a secret

record of his true journey,

while gradually the cables

he sent back to London

mapped out the story

of a fake journey.

Winspear:

I suspect that he might have said,

"Well, let's carry on

a bit,

let a little water

pass under the bridge."

And then

the game develops.

Swinton:

Crowhurst may only have intended

to exaggerate

his progress

before retiring from the race with

a little pride restored.

But that first decision

became a trap of its own.

Simon:

The option of pulling out of the race

became even more formidable.

Because the difference between where

people thought my father was

and where he actually was

became greater and greater.

So to pull in at a port

would bring home

the fact that

he was not at all where

he was supposed to be...

that he was much much

further behind.

Winspear:

That's where he got trapped, wasn't it?

He'd made a mistake.

Whatever fears he had,

he had to go through with it.

He couldn't go back.

He couldn't

go home.

Simon:

Around Christmastime,

my father managed to get

through on the telephone

to my mother.

He couldn't tell her

the problems that he was facing.

She thought

he was doing well,

and that her job was to convince him

that she was coping.

They were trying

to protect each other.

We tried to have

a good Christmas,

but there was still a great sense

of something missing.

Clare:

I remember one of the children

sitting on

the staircase crying

that he wanted

his daddy.

And that...

I think

brought it home to me

what a dreadful thing

we had done.

Donald:
"There is a spirituality

about this place,

and about the time...

Christmas...

that does tend to make one

a little bit melancholy.

And one thinks

of one's friends and family,

and you know that

they're thinking of you.

And the sense

of separation

is somehow increased

by the Ioneliness."

Man:
What about the children?

How are they reacting?

Clare:

They're all right.

They're healthy enough

about it.

One of them has nightmares,

and this is a bit worrying.

He walks in his sleep

and he shouts

and he sees his father.

And because he can't...

he sees him,

but he can't

communicate with him,

and he can't feel the warmth

of his personality about,

he worries

about this, of course.

But the others are

very blas about it,

and they think of "Daddy's going to win

the Golden Globe," you know.

Swinton:

Early in the new year,

a newspaper photographed

Clare with the wives

of Tetley and Moitessier.

They were christened

"The Sea Widows."

For weeks now,

Crowhurst's publicity agents

had tried to report

news of his progress.

But after the cable claiming

the world's speed record,

his messages were rare

and hard to decipher.

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