Deep Water

---

Ron Winspear:
We are all human beings,

and we have dreams.

This voyage is Don's.

For him,

it was the adventure.

There may have been an element

he wanted fame and glory.

He wasn't averse

to taking risks.

But, when you're alone...

just you...

and the ocean...

it's the whole

of your universe.

It's totally indifferent.

It's there

waiting for you.

If you make a slip...

then imagination

is the danger.

It's no longer

about heroes...

and adventures

at sea.

It's about isolation...

and the delicate

mechanism

of the mind.

Ted Hynds:

It was this new Elizabethan age.

It was the Beatles.

It was sexual freedom...

freedom of the seas.

It caught

the imagination.

Announcer:

Francis Chichester aboard Gipsy Moth IV

is now in sight

of home.

He's merely 15 miles

from Plymouth,

at the end of his epic

round-the-world voyage.

Thousands of people have been

pouring into the city.

They're waiting for their

first glimpse of a man

who set out nine months

and 33,000 miles ago.

Hynds:

There were signs, there was noise.

It was mayhem.

You stood and watched

and let it

wash over you.

Chichester had done a single-handed

circumnavigation

and brought his vessel

back home.

Stirring stuff,

boys-only stuff.

Hynds:

Chichester had started the ball rolling.

People were looking for

"What was the new challenge?

What's the next frontier?"

Robin Knox-Johnston:

Chichester stopped halfway.

He pulled into Australia

and did quite-serious refits.

I thought, "That's it.

One thing left to be done...

go around the world,

single-handed, but nonstop."

Hynds:
The general public

got into the spirit of it,

and newspapers

as well.

And of course "The Sunday Times"

came up with the idea

of a nonstop race around

the world.

Donald Kerr:
There could be

no greater challenge.

The first part, down to

the South Atlantic, was fairly kind,

but then your

troubles started.

Once you rounded

the Cape of Good Hope,

you were into

the Roaring 40s,

that endless band of storms

that circled the world.

Then, thousands

of miles later,

you pass south

of Australia,

New Zealand, and across

the rest of the Pacific,

to Cape Horn.

The seas became

narrow there,

and as they

fall together,

they grew wilder.

Then up past

the Falkland Islands,

cross the equator,

back into the North Atlantic,

and you were

on your way home.

Tilda Swinton:

In the spring of 1968,

some of the world's most

experienced sailors

began to gather

in the ports of Britain.

They were stepping forward

as contenders

in the greatest

endurance test of all time.

Kerr:
This wasn't a race in

the normal sense of the word.

You could leave

whenever you liked,

but you had to leave

before October the 31st,

to avoid the really severe

winter weather

at Cape Horn.

The first man to do it

would get the Golden Globe.

The boat that went

round fastest

would get the big prize

of 5,000.

Knox-Johnston:
This was something

that a human hadn't yet

attempted to do.

First of all, we didn't know if

a boat could take it.

Secondly, there was considerable doubt

if a human could take it.

Psychiatrists said

that a human would go mad

if they tried

to do it.

We're talking about

10 months of Ioneliness.

But the more people

told me it wasn't possible

and I couldn't do it, the more I was

convinced I could do it.

The one I thought would

prove real competition

was Bernard Moitessier.

He was highly experienced.

Swinton:
The French adventurer,

Bernard Moitessier,

and the British Merchant Marine Captain,

Robin Knox-Johnston,

were among nine men

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes