I saw a very interesting documentary this morning. It came out in 2006 and was narrated by Tilda Swinton. In 1966, an Englishman by the name of Francis Chichester managed to sail single-handedly around the world. In his sailboat, The Gypsy Moth, Chichester sailed south from England, and followed an easterly course past the cape horn of Africa through the southern Indian ocean, between Antarctica and Australia. This portion of the globe and its Pacific and Atlantic contingent is known among sailors as the "roaring forties". At this longitude, the sea is unencumbered by any land masses. The result is roiling seas, massive waves and howling winds.
Sir Chichester and his Gypsy Moth
By the time Chichester had reached the south Australian coastline, his boat was in tatters. He put into port at Sydney, made significant repairs and resumed his journey. He continued eastward through the South Pacific and fought his way past the Cape of Good Hope, the stormiest place in all the oceans and headed north through the Atlantic and home to Jolly Olde England. He thus became the first person to ever sail alone around the world. His arrival back home was, of course, met with great acclaim and he was eventually knighted by Queen Elizabeth. This singular feat got people to thinking. Was it possible to make that same trip without ever coming into port?
Sir Chichester's Gypsy Moth in full sail
By 1968 a contest had been devised: The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. Sponsored principally by the London Times newspaper, the contest was laid out thusly: There was a prize of five thousand pounds for the first man to sail around the world unaided by others and without stopping to land. There was a second prize for the sailor who did it the fastest. Eventually ten men signed up for this challenge. Nine of these men were experienced sailors and nautical adventurers with significant resources. Then there was Donald Crowhurst.
Donald Crowhurst was an Englishman who owned a small struggling business that manufactured a nautical navigational device that he dubbed the Navicator that would enable smaller sailboats and the like to plot their global position. Sales were slow and Crowhurst struggled to provide for his wife and four kids. He had hardly any sailing experience and was woefully underqualified to undertake such a challenge as a solo circumnavigation of the globe. But what is a man's life if not the stuff of dreams? As John Steinbeck put it so well in his wonderful Novella, "The Pearl". "His wife, a simple peasant woman, didn't understand him at all. Her attitude towards him was like all men: Man: Half God, Half Insane." (I'm paraphrasing here a bit but the God/Insane thing was the point...).
Donald Crowhurst novice sailor and big dreamer
Desperate for a change in his fortune, Crowhurst got it in his head that he could build a boat, a trimaran, that could not only make the journey but win the prize money, to boot. In 1968, the trimaran sailboat concept was an experimental one. A trimaran, by spreading out and reducing the drag from the area of the boat that was underwater, could sail faster than single hulled sailboats. Trimarans had two problems: 1. They couldn't sail into the wind as well as single hulls and 2. If they capsized, they could not be righted. Somehow, Crowhurst managed to raise funds and interest in his quixotic venture. His main source of funds came from a newspaper publisher who sensed a chance to make some news and some money by telling the saga of the building and sailing of the "Teignmouth Electron", as the boat was named, in this round-the-world contest.
This publisher was interested in having exclusivity to Donald's great adventure, but he was also a hard-headed businessman. He had Donald sign a contract, in exchange for his financial assistance, giving him exclusive rights to his story and his radio transmissions while at sea. If Donald didn't finish the trip, his home and his business would be foreclosed on to pay back the publisher's investment. By this time, Crowhurst had convinced himself that this was the only option to save himself and his family. A publicist was also brought on board to manage the ongoing story. His regular dispatches, through the newspaper, chronicled Donald's efforts at raising the funds, building the boat, equipping it for such a trip and figuring out how to sail the damn thing. The novice sailor with the novelty sailboat design had no more than a 50-50 chance of succeeding in even finishing the race, never mind coming in first or fastest. This assessment was given by none other than Donald himself.
Somehow, the project went forward, the boat got built and stocked and the whole improbable story was chronicled on film and in print. In order to qualify for the contest your boat had to sail by October 31 in 1968. Later departures would lead to suicidal conditions in the treacherous waters of the Southern Ocean. Now that the boat had been built, Donald was to sail it 150 miles north to the town of Teignmouth where his backers had arranged a big farewell for him. Some final fitting and provisioning was to take place, then the boat would disembark sometime before the deadline. This initial "break-in" sail would serve to prove the vessels seaworthiness and Donald's ability to sail her. Under the conditions current at the time, it should not have taken more than three days to sail. It took two weeks. The double whammy of Donald's and the boat's inexperience almost proved too much.
By the time he came limping into port at Teignmouth, many among his friends and family were petitioning Crowhurst to give up the venture. However, having signed a contract, Donald realized that he and his family would face a ruinous future if he bowed out now. The only way out of his situation was to press forward. Despite the boat not being ready and still missing critical gear and equipment, on October 31, Donald allowed himself to be towed out to the official starting line to begin the race. The other nine contenders were already well on their way. A canon shot was fired, the tow line was cut and the Teignmouth Electron, with Donald at the helm, was under way. Several hours later he was back in port. The rigging on the main mast was fowled up and he couldn't properly raise the sail. I should also mention that at the official launch of the boat into the water when the ceremonial bottle of champagne is smashed against the hull, the bottle didn't break. Among sailors, admittedly a superstitious lot, this is a very bad omen indeed. Things definitely did not look good at the outset of this momentous voyage.
By late afternoon of the 31st. Donald finally made it out past the starting line and officially into the race. In the next several weeks he sailed south in the relatively tranquil waters of the mid-Atlantic. During this time he learned of several other structural weaknesses in his vessel. The transmitter for his occasional radio transmissions and receptions was balky and despite his background in nautical electronics he never completely resolved the problem which gave him a very spotty transmission record compared to the other sailors in the race. In addition, the boat started springing small leaks everywhere. He envisioned "death by a thousand cuts" as the multitude of leaks slowly overcame his ability to bail. The water got into bilge area and shorted out his bilge pump and all subsequent bailing had to done by hand. All this and other problems cropped up while he was still in the smooth sailing portion of the race.
He kept a journal of his trip as did all the contestants since it was required by the contest's sponsors. In addition to his position, miles sailed per day and other nautical information, it included his private thoughts, much along the lines of a diary. As he approached the southern oceans where the sailing would get very rough, he came to this realization: He could abandon the race and forfeit all his assets to his sponsor, thus bringing his family to ruin and humiliation. Or he could continue on with the race as required by his personal contract all but dooming him to a watery death. As the seas became rougher he pondered this fatal choice between a rock and a hard place. Then something very strange occurred to him.
This is the route the race took. South from England then east till you passed the cape of South America then north to home.
He was far behind the other boats and the only way the folks back in England knew of the boats' whereabouts was from the radio dispatches that were received at race headquarters. So Donald Crowhurst came up with a third option. He would start reporting false positions showing rapid progress across the Southern Ocean showing that he was gaining on the frontrunners. Meanwhile, he would just sail around in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina out of sight and harms way. Suddenly a sailor who had had trouble sailing 150 miles in two weeks, reported a daily progress of 243 miles in a day. In his radiograms, he chalked it up to finally figuring out how to get the maximum speed that had been predicted in the trimaran's design. His camp of family, friends, sponsors and publicists were overjoyed at this new development. The national press was galvanized by this change of events and the race, which had been languishing in people's consciousness as the months dragged by, suddenly became page one news again.
Donald's outrageous plan was as follows: Since he was so far behind and woefully under equipped to take on the capes, the Southern Ocean and their furious weather, he would continue to sail around off the eastern coast of South America. Eventually the other sailors would sail past him on their final leg home and he could slip in behind them. That way he would have been seen to have finished the race, thus avoiding financial ruin and as a lesser contestant, he reasoned that his journals would not be scrutinized as much and he just might get away with his little deception. While all this cogitating was going on in Crowhurst's mind, several of the other sailors started succumbing to the rigors of the journey. Eventually six dropped out for mechanical or personal reasons and one, the leader up to that point, decided to keep on sailing. As he past the cape of storms off of South America and headed north to home, prizes and masses of adulation unseen since the Lindbergh flight, a funny thing happened. He had embraced his solitude out on the open sea so much that he was unwilling to give it up. One day, in the mid-Atlantic he turned his boat southward, abandoned the race and ended up some months later in Tahiti. The movie didn't say whether he ever saw his friends and family again.
Now there were three and Donald realized his scheme was more likely to be discovered with so few contenders left. As he sailed aimlessly back and forth off the coast of Argentina, (once actually landing in a little backwater port to make some furtive repairs to his damaged hull), his journal entries show a man who was beginning to unravel. He had a tape recorder and a camera on board and much of the documentary's footage takes advantage of this material. At one point, we hear him, obviously drunk, singing sea chanteys as the camera shows him slugging from a bottle. In the background, the ocean looks relatively calm with a nice breeze blowing. I couldn't help but observe that it looked like a really nice day for a sail. Meanwhile the other two contenders made it safely back to the starting line to great acclaim and celebration. After that, the press and the people's attention turned to the situation with Crowhurst and the Teignmouth Electron. Where was Donald's boat? Why had there been no further radio transmissions. As the weeks dragged by, Donald's people got more and more apprehensive that something dreadful had befallen him and his sailboat.
Eventually, an Argentine Coast Guard Cutter found the boat. It was floating about a hundred miles off the coast; there was no one aboard. The tape recordings, film and journals were aboard and eventually the full picture of Donald's last days were pieced together and published in the newspaper. As it became clearer to him that he'd never be able to pull of this ruse, he became more and more distraught. The idea of coming home to face humiliation and financial ruin for him and his family was untenable. Therefore, he decided to end the farce there. He left his journal in mid-sentence and dove out of the boat. His body was never found. The Teignmouth Electron was eventually towed to an island in the Caribbean where it sits today, abandoned and decaying.
The winner of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race donated his five thousand pound winnings to the Crowhurst family. The race was never held again. Today, over forty years later there is a new race with the same conditions; One person, one boat, no ports of call. Advances in technology and sailboat design now make it possible to actually hold a race that doesn't have such dire consequences for its participants. However the route hasn't changed and the Southern Seas are just as rough today, if not more so. People do capsize and die in their attempts to accomplish this singular feat. If Donald Crowhurst were alive I'm sure he'd sympathize.
Heave to, mateys, and pass the grog! Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres
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