CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018 73
Jim Dines oversaw the replica
build of Crowhurst’s boat and was
on set with Colin FirthALAMYT
he big screen depiction of Donald Crowhurst’s
harrowing fate in the Sunday Times Golden
Globe Race of 1968/69 is released by Studio
Canal on 9 February, called The Mercy. It stars
Colin Firth as Crowhurst, Rachel Weisz as his wife Clare
and involved the building of a replica of Crowhurst’s
trimaran Teignmouth Electron.
Jim Dines of Heritage Marine and TS Rigging was
initially contacted about finding a boat that could pose
as Teignmouth Electron. Other models of the Victress
class trimaran exist, but each is different in rig and
layout. Crowhurst’s boat was customised with a heavily
modified deckhouse and low cabin
top, as well as watertight stowage in
the hulls – all of which, it was
believed, would suit a solo offshore
voyage. So a decision was taken to
build a replica, leaving Dines to
collect whatever reference material
he needed to complete the build at
his Downs Road Boatyard in Essex.
Crowhurst’s multihull has been
decaying on land on Cayman Brac
since 1988, but Dines could study the
boat using press photos taken when
Crowhurst departed, as well as the
photos Crowhurst took during the
voyage. He also used the many
photos taken when Teignmouth
Electron was found adrift by the RMS
Picardy and taken to Jamaica.
It went on to be modified further
as a hotel fishing boat, then a dive boat, however the
modernday photos did enable Dines to establish
beyond doubt that she was the Victress class trimaran,
designed by Arthur Piver. There were suggestions that
she was Piver’s 41ft design. Photos of Teignmouth
Electron’s stern, compared with lines plans from Piver’s
US archive, put that idea out of mind.
Copies of the original design blueprints were fed
into a modelling programme to produce 3-D CAD
drawings and a model by Ian Wilson at Blackwater
Marina. Dines then began to modify the design of the
boat as Crowhurst had, which included reducing the rig
height by 4ft. This was to accommodate the extra
weight of a buoyancy bag at the mast top, something
Crowhurst fitted, but failed to connect by the race start.
Halfway through the construction process, the
Crowhurst family released copies of some of the
original drawings, showing the boat Dines was creating
was very close to Crowhurst’s original.
The frames and internal structure was CNC-cut in
plywood and assembled on three separate jigs by Ian
Wilson’s team, then taken to Heritage Marine’s
workshops in Maldon to be assembled and have decks
and detail added. Dines then worked the magic that
has made him one of the film industry’s most sought-
after marine consultants.
“To transport something around the world that is
21ft wide is expensive,” he says. “It needs to be capable
of being broken down into smaller components,
transported and then put back together in a short time.“But like any of the ‘set boats’ that I have designed
and built, it also has to work as a boat, safely and
reliably. Normally the huge crossbeams that span the
beam of the trimaran would be key to the strength of
the vessel, but they had to be cut through, so that we
could take it all apart for transportation.”
Dines ended up with three hull sections that could
be pushed together on trolleys. Spray foam was used
to fill the sponsons and main bilges, as well as any
sections of the hull that would never be seen on
camera, to make the structure virtually unsinkable.
Meanwhile an outboard well was cut into the back.
The cabin was fitted out in
accordance with original drawings and
the famous archive photos taken by
Crowhurst and those who found the
boat. This included small details such
as the Blakes Paraffin Cooker – three
identical cookers were made, two for
the boat (one clean and one dirty) and
one for the shoreside set.FILMING
After the build at Dines’ yard, filming
took place in Portland, Dorset, then in
Teignmouth, Devon, and finally off
Malta. The boat had been constructed
under continuous survey and coded to
meet Maritime and Coastguard Agency
requirements for three miles offshore
and operation in conditions up to a
Force 4, but with a limited lifespan and
loadline exemption for three months. This would allow
filming to take place, but would discourage anyone
acquiring the boat afterwards and attempting a
potentially hazardous voyage.
Dines and Andy Murray from Ocean Sports Tuition
were on board with actor Colin Firth for all the sailing
scenes, Dines sometimes lying out of sight in the
cockpit with a hand on the helm, or quietly directing
Firth in what to do. Firth, playing Crowhurst, had
completed some sailing instruction with Murray
before filming.
Dines says: “The actor was pretty focused on the
action and his lines, but there was some social
interaction and we went through with him how to
stand, how to act, how to coil ropes, what he would be
doing. We worked very closely with the whole team.”
Both the director James Marsh and Firth were
adamant that all the sailing scenes should be shot in
real time at sea, except night-time footage and a storm
scene, which were shot in a water tank in Malta.
Dines had three sets of rigging and sails ready –
new, dirty and very dirty. Work carried on in between
shoots, too. At the end of the day, Dines and his team
would crane the boat out of the water and overnight
completely repaint it and fit new sails, to accommodate
the next day’s shoot. “Then we would dirty it down
again for the next day!” he said.The Mercy is released on 9 February in the UK.
See our review next month.Above: the
replica ready for
shooting in
Teignmouth and
(inset) Crowhurst
setting off 50
years ago.
Left: the boat
was dressed, in
this case dirtied
up, each night;
a still from the
trailer showing
the boat in build
EMILY HARRIS