The Teignmouth Electron now lies abandoned, rotting on the beach near the Kidco Dock on the southwest shore of Cayman Brac. It was found ghosting alone in the North Atlantic near the end of the 1968 Golden Globe nonstop singlehanded sailboat race around the world. Its sole inhabitant for 243 days, Captain Donald Crowhurst, was never found.
In the era before GPS and global satellite tracking, sailors' logbooks were relied upon for verification of routes travelled. Crowhurst, the dark horse darling of Teignmouth England, had two sets of logs - one for race officials carefully calculating his route around the world, and another showing his actual route, sailing in circles for months in remote areas of the Atlantic ocean. Thousands upon thousands of words in Crowhurst's personal journals were also found, documenting his slow spiral into insanity during the race.
To most of the public Donald Crowhurst was a successful businessman, loud and brash, highly intelligent and outwardly confident in all of his ventures. He had a wife and family in England and big plans. Privately, however, his business was failing. He was very familiar with Sir Francis Chichester and his world famous singlehanded trip around the world on Gypsy Moth IV (making one stop in Australia), and when the 1968 Golden Globe race was proposed, Crowhurst saw an opportunity. The singlehanded nonstop race around the world offered two prizes - one for the first to finish, and one for the fastest elapsed time. Since the beginning of the race was open for several months, two winners were possible. If Crowhurst could take one of the two prizes, probably the one for fastest elapsed time, the prize money could go towards propping up his business financially and the publicity, he was convinced, would make it a success. The only problem was that Crowhurst was just a marginal weekend sailor with no boat and no backing.
Through sheer force of will Crowhurst raced against the start deadline of the Golden Globe and somehow landed a sponsor. He helped design - in 1968 - a futuristic trimaran with an electronic "computer" that he was sure would break all records. The boat, christened the Teignmouth Electron, was built on a crash schedule and launched literally at the last minute without being fully tested and without Crowhurst's newly designed electronics in place. With his trademark confidence he said that he would finish it at sea.
Once the boat was in the water Crowhurst, sailing alone, discovered that the promised speed of the trimaran, a revolutionary design in the late 1960's, did not materialize. The hastily designed vessel performed poorly under Crowhurst's inexperienced hand, but he would not - or could not - admit defeat. If he quit the race he faced humiliation and financial ruin. Halfway down the Atlantic heading towards the tip of Africa he began plotting two courses. One course was his actual position, and the other was where he should be if he stayed on schedule. He radioed in cryptic reports, even claiming a new 24 hour sailing speed record. As he neared the southern ocean he claimed that he was having generator problems and would have to maintain radio silence to conserve his batteries. He then went silent for several months. His planned hoax seemed to be to sneak back into the rear of the field as it rounded the tip of South America and headed home to England. Crowhurst gave up hope of finishing in one of the two first place positions, but he believed that if he at least finished his race log books would not receive the scrutiny of the winners and he would gain the credibility to keep his creditors at bay and allow him to build a better boat for the next race. Meanwhile he made an illicit stop in a small town on the coast of Argentina for much needed supplies.
Robin Knox-Johnston was the first to finish the race in April 1969. Then problems for Crowhurst began mounting as other competitors began dropping out. Bernard Moitessier was having such a good time in the Roaring Forties that he decided to drop out and circle the globe again. He eventually did 45,000 miles solo and ended up in Tahiti. Crowhurst slipped in behind Nigel Tetley as he headed north from Cape Horn, the only other boat still in the race at this point, and re-established radio contact. Tetley's boat was failing but he pushed it to the breaking point as he neared the finish believing that Crowhurst was tight on his heels. Tetley drove his boat too hard and ended up having to abandon ship on May 30, leaving Crowhurst as the only sailor left in the race and the guaranteed winner of the prize for time elapsed. All he had to do now was finish.
Crowhurst was greatly conflicted about causing the end of Tetley's boat and the enormity of his hoax finally hit him. If he finished now, in first place for the elapsed time portion of the race, his logbooks would be heavily scrutinized. Although he had taken great pains to "reverse engineer" his celestial navigation fixes around the world, an extremely difficult process in itself, he realized that he would probably be found out and completely ruined. His sanity finally left him and he spent untold hours writing a religious and philosophical treatise of over 25,000 words that spiraled into incoherence and detailed his ultimate mental breakdown. He ceased radio communications again on June 29, 1969, made his last log entry on July 1, and the Teignmouth Electron was found abandoned on July 10th. It is believed Crowhurst jumped off the boat and drowned, taking with him a last log book and the ship's clock. Later as his death became apparent, sole finisher Robin Knox-Johnston donated his default winnings for the elapsed time portion of the race to Crowhurst's now destitute widow and family.
"The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst" is fascinating reading. A true sailor's classic, it reveals the dark side of the mind of Crowhurst and the psychology of a mind disintegrating into madness. It reprints and analyzes Crowhurst's last writings in great detail, and even reprints his "Last Letter" to his widow Clare, with her permission, written before the voyage and to be opened only in the event of his being lost at sea. Several sections of photographs and charts are welcome additions to the text. This excellent, gripping book can be read as an intriguing companion piece to Sir Francis Chichester's "Gypsy Moth Circles the World," which I reviewed last year. Authors Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall handle a difficult subject with restraint, respect, and dignity. Highly recommended.
INTERESTING NOTE: The Teignmouth Electron can be located on Google Earth to this day at the coordinates 19°41'10.40"N 79°52'37.83"W.
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