If you’re a fan of the original Sunday Times Golden

Globe Race, The Mercy will not disappoint

‘ONE OF THE

BEST SAILING

FILMS I’VE

EVER SEEN’

Words Katy Stickland

T

he Mercy follows Donald

Crowhurst’s disastrous attempts

to win the 1968-69 race in his 41ft

trimaran, the Teignmouth Electron.

Crowhurst’s boat was ill prepared

for the voyage, which claimed his

life, and left his wife Clare a sea

widow and his children fatherless.

The amateur sailor was dubbed ‘the mystery

man’ by the press, but never made it past the

southern Atlantic Ocean. Instead, he falsified

his logs and reported fictional positions after

realising that his leaking trimaran would

never make it through the Southern Ocean.

Crowhurst sunk everything he had into

the venture, using his family home and his

business as collateral. He had serious doubts

about the voyage before he even left the Devon

port of Teignmouth, where much of the film

is shot. This conflict between his fear of dying

at sea or admitting defeat and risking

subsequent humiliation is fascinating, and his

romantic hope of being crowned a British

hero like Sir Francis Chichester, had he

completed the voyage, is heartbreaking to

witness through film.

Excellently portrayed by Colin Firth, the

actor leaves you in no doubt of the sheer angst

that Crowhurst must have suffered. He plays

Crowhurst as a stoic, almost sleepwalking

towards his fate and unable to step off the

runaway train he is on, clinging to the hope

that he can prove the cynics wrong and win

the race. Crowhurst’s descent into madness

is not overdramatised, and is depicted as a

gradual decline. He finally cracks when he

learns of the fate of fellow trimaran competitor

Nigel Tetley, who sinks and is rescued after

pushing his boat too hard in the belief that

Crowhurst was gaining on him.

A tear will certainly be shed towards the end

of the film, when Crowhurst apologises for his

shortcomings to a hallucination of his wife.

Rachel Weisz is moving as Clare, bringing home

the uncertainty and fears of the often-forgotten

sailor’s wife, left waiting on dry land. Trying

to hold her family together, she can be seen

battling with her own demons after realising

her outwardly confident husband is terrified

of heading out to sea. However, more could

certainly have been made of the scene of their

last night together, which didn’t quite convey

the ‘frightful’ experience that Clare Crowhurst

later publicly talked about.

Sailors will be relieved to know that unlike

a certain Robert Redford sailing film, The

Mercy doesn’t leave yachtsmen and women

tutting and shaking their heads in disgust

during the sailing scenes. Okay, so there were

a few modern boats in Teignmouth Harbour

Crowhurst’s Teignmouth

Electron was not fully

finished when he set sail

FILM