Donald Crowhurst, played here by Colin Firth, was the weekend sailor who had never even crossed the Channel, yet in 1968 set off from Teignmouth in Devon on a circumnavigation of the globe — on a boat hopelessly ill-equipped for the purpose.
Somewhere in the Atlantic, realising that he couldn’t press on but feeling unable to turn back, he began to send fake reports of his whereabouts.
His wife and children were among those, back in England, who were duped into thinking that he was progressing around the world at record-breaking speed. But the deception did not continue.
When eventually his boat, the Teignmouth Electron, was found, Crowhurst wasn’t on it.
