Crowhurst movie trailer
Official trailer for the soon to be released film THE MERCY which aims to tell the story of Donald Crowhurst's fateful attempt to race around the world in 1968 has been released. The feature was filmed partially in Teignmouth and in Maldon, UK.
Heritage Marine - Downs Road Boatyard and TS Rigging built a replica of the trimaran that Donald Crowhurst entered in the 1968-69 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.
The TEIGNMOUTH ELECTRON would become the boat in 1968 that Crowhurst would falsify his positions on in the South Atlantic Ocean as other competitors sailed passed him in the race to circumnavigate, he struggled to keep his sanity. Amid the pressure from sponsors, the humiliation of failure and then the shame of lying Crowhurst lost his mind "[Crowhurst] as recorded in his logs indicates a complex and conflicted psychological state".
Crowhurst's entry was a unproven vessel for such a race, a 40ft (12m) trimaran designed by Arthur Piver (1910–1968). Piver was a World War II pilot, an amateur sailor, author, printshop owner and boatbuilder from the San Francisco Bay area, later dubbed as "the father of the modern multihull".
Release date for THE MERCY is February 2018 (UK), timely for the 50th anniversary of the Golden Globe Race in which Crowhurst's competitor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston became the first yachtsman to solo non-stop circumnavigate the world. The film stars high profile actors Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz. Directed by James Marsh THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (2014), MAN ON WIRE (2008) and PROJECT NIM (2011) ,
It's an compelling story and a very different production compared to the 2006 documentary DEEP WATER.