The mysterious and tragic disappearance of the single-handed sailor Donald Crowhurst more than 50 years ago continues to fascinate. Nic Compton explains why… Hailed as a
\nround the world single-handed hero, Donald Crowhurst in fact never left the Atlantic during his 243 days at sea. Photo: AlamyIt was while I was researching my book about madness at sea in 2015 that I first heard a movie about Donald Crowhurst was in the works. Several websites published reports of a high-profile British feature starring Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz, and a few surreptitious photos of the cast filming off Teignmouth had been posted online. It seemed a lucky coincidence, given that my book would inevitably feature the Crowhurst story, but I assumed the movie would come out long before my book was ready.
\nOver the next couple of years, however, the release date for the film was repeatedly postponed \u2013 so much so that it became a running topic among Hollywood gossipmongers, who speculated that Crowhurst\u2019s widow Clare had delayed progress, or that it was being held back to tie with the 50th anniversary of the events, or indeed that it might never be released in cinemas and go straight to DVD instead.
\nMeanwhile, I carried on writing my book, Off the Deep End, which was published in 2017, and the movie, The Mercy, was released in February 2018. There was never any doubt the tragic story of Donald Crowhurst would have to be included in any book about madness at sea.
\nColin Firth stars as Donald Crowhurst in the 2018 film The Mercy. Photo: Studio Canal
\nOf all the stories I researched, it\u2019s the one that has caught the public imagination most. Long before the latest Hollywood offering it inspired movies, books, plays, art installations, an epic poem and even an opera. Whereas many stories of adventures at sea seem to leave the general public cold, the Crowhurst tale continues to fascinate more than 50 years after Teignmouth\u2019s most famous sailor vanished without trace. And yet, despite the thousands of words written about him, we really know very little more about him than we did 50 years ago.
\nIt all started when Francis Chichester made his historic single-handed circumnavigation in 1966-67 \u2013 not the first to do so, by any means, but certainly the fastest up to that point, completing the loop in 226 days with just one stop, in Sydney, to repair his self-steering. Even before he\u2019d docked at Plymouth there was a general realisation, which spread like osmosis throughout the sailing world, that the next step would be to sail around solo without stopping.
\nThe challenge was turned into a contest by the Sunday Times which, in March 1968, announced two prizes: a Golden Globe trophy for the first person to sail round the world via the Three Capes single-handed and non-stop, and a \u00a35,000 cash prize for the person to do it in the fastest time. The only stipulation was that competitors had to leave from a British port between 1 June and 31 October 1968, and had to return to the same place.
\nArticle continues below\u2026<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tA voyage for 21st Century madmen? What drives the Golden Globe skippers<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA voyage for madmen, so was the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race deemed. When the first non-stop race around\u2026<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tHow extreme barnacle growth hobbled the 2018-19 Golden Globe Race fleet<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEighty-knot gales, 10m-high waves, pitchpoling, loneliness and ever-depleting food reserves\u2026 of all the challenges facing a single-handed non-stop circumnavigator you\u2026<\/p>\n
Nine skippers eventually signed up for the race: the famous transatlantic rowing duo Chay Blyth and John Ridgway, who had by then fallen out but were sailing near-identical 30ft glassfibre production boats; Bernard Moitessier, already something of a legend in France for breaking the long-distance sailing record on his steel ketch Joshua; Moitessier\u2019s friend Loi\u0308c Fougeron; Robin Knox-Johnston, an unknown British merchant navy officer sailing a heavy wooden boat called Suhaili; two former British naval officers, Bill King and Nigel Tetley; the experienced Italian single-handed sailor Alex Carozzo; and Donald Crowhurst.
\nOut of the group, Crowhurst was by far the least experienced, the odd one out. Born in India in 1932, he went to Loughborough College after the war, until family nances and the death of his father forced him to cut his education short. He joined the RAF in 1948 but was chucked out after six years because of some high jinks with a vehicle; the same thing happened when he joined the army and he was forced to resign after he was caught trying to hotwire a car during a drunken escapade.
\nPersuasive character
\nCrowhurst with his wife Clare and their children Rachel, Simon, Roger and James, circa October 1968. Photo: Getty Images
\nNext he got as job as a travelling salesman for an electrics company, but was again dismissed after crashing the company car.
\nEver-persuasive, he talked himself into a job as chief design engineer for an electronics company in Somerset, and in 1962 set up his own company, Electron Utilisation, to manufacture electronic devices for yachts.
\nThe company got off to a good start, selling a simple but well-designed radio direction finder which Crowhurst dubbed the Navicator. Pye Radio invested \u00a38,500 in the project, before getting cold feet and pulling out.
\nIt quickly became clear that while Crowhurst was a charismatic personality and brilliant innovator he didn\u2019t have the business acumen to run a successful company, and Electron Utilisation was soon in financial trouble.
\nCrowhurst managed to persuade local businessman Stanley Best to invest \u00a31,000 to carry the company over what he assured him was a temporary lean period.
\nIt must have been obvious to Crowhurst that he was heading for another failure. By now 35 years old, he could see the same pattern repeating itself, of high ambition thwarted by petty practicalities. Only, by now married to Clare with four children and living in a comfortable house outside Bridgwater in Somerset, the stakes were higher than ever.
\nHis response to failure was to reinvent himself yet again. This time he would become a record-breaking sailor, a seafaring hero in the vein of Chichester: he would sail around the world single-handed \u2013 even though he had until then only dabbled in sailing, mainly on board a 20ft sloop called Pot of Gold. First, however, he needed a boat.
\nAfter failing to persuade the Cutty Sark Committee to lend him Gipsy Moth IV for the voyage, he decided a trimaran would be the ideal craft \u2013 despite having never sailed on one. To get the funding to build his dream boat he achieved perhaps the greatest coup of his life.
\nWith Electron Utilisation going down the pan, his backer Stanley Best wanted his loan repaid, but Crowhurst managed to persuade him the best way to get his money back would be to fund the construction of the new boat.
\nA replica of the 41ft Teignmouth Electron used in the filming of The Mercy. Photo: WENN Ltd\/Alamy
\nThe crux of his argument was that he would use the trimaran as a test bed for his new inventions, and the publicity gained from entering the race would catapult the company to success. The sting in the tail was that the loan was guaranteed by Electron Utilisation, which meant that, if the venture failed, the company would go bankrupt.
\nTo understand how he managed this turnaround you have to go back in time. Photos of Crowhurst make him look geekish and uncool to the modern eye. With his sticky-out ears, high forehead, curly hair, tie and V-neck jumper, he appears the epitome of the eccentric inventor.
\nBut all the contemporary accounts describe him as a charismatic, vibrant personality, the sort of person who lights up a room when they walk in \u2013 as well as being extremely clever. In fact, his cleverness was his problem. He had the gift of the gab and, once persuaded of something, could talk anyone into believing him.
\n\u201cThis is important,\u201d said his wife Clare. \u201cDonald had this definite talent. He would say the most amazing things, but then no matter how crazy they seemed, he\u2019d be clever and ingenious enough to make them come true. Always. This is a most important point about his character.\u201d
\nCrowhurst\u2019s widow, Clare, holds the last photograph taken of Donald with his family. Photo: Guy Newman \/ Alamy
\nSlow off the mark
\nSo Crowhurst got the money for Teignmouth Electron, which was built by Cox Marine in Essex and fitted out by JL Eastwood in Norfolk. It\u2019s a measure of how far behind he was that by the time the Cox yard started building the hulls towards the end of June, Ridgway, Blyth and Knox-Johnston had already set off on their round-the-world attempts. In the event, complications meant the launch date was delayed and even when Crowhurst finally set off on 31 October \u2013 just a few hours before the Sunday Times deadline expired \u2013 his boat was barely complete.
\nNone of the clever inventions he had devised for the boat were connected, including the all-important buoyancy bag at the top of the mast, which was supposed to inflate if the trimaran capsized. His revolutionary \u2018computer\u2019, which was supposed to monitor the performance of the boat and set off various safety devices, was no more than a bunch of unconnected wires.
\nWorse still, he had had to borrow yet more money from Best to finish the boat, and had mortgaged his home to guarantee the loan. Crowhurst made a desultory figure scrambling about the deck of his trimaran as he set off on his great adventure \u2013 only to turn around within a few minutes to untangle his jib and staysail halyards, which were snagged at the top of the mast.<\/p>\n
It was just the start of his troubles. After two days at sea, while still within sight of Cornwall, the screws started falling off his self-steering and, not having any spares on board, he had to cannibalise other parts of the machine to replace them.
\nA leaky boat
\nA few days later, halfway across the Bay of Biscay, he discovered the forward compartment of one of the hulls had filled up with water from a leaking hatch.
\nSoon, other compartments began to leak and, as he\u2019d been unable to get the correct piping for the bilge pumps, his only option was to bail them out with a bucket. Then, two weeks after leaving Teignmouth, his generator broke down after being soaked with water from another leaking hatch.
\n\u201cThis bloody boat is just falling to pieces due to lack of attention to engineering detail!!!\u201d he wrote in his log. A few days later he made a long list of jobs that needed doing and concluded his chances of survival if he carried on were at best 50\/50. He began to think about abandoning the race.
\nBut Crowhurst was in a triple bind. If he dropped out at this stage, not only would his reputation be destroyed but his business would go bankrupt and, perhaps worse of all, he and his family would lose their home. For all these reasons, giving up was not an option.
\nIt soon became clear his estimates for the boat\u2019s speed had been wildly optimistic: he had estimated an average of 220 miles per day, whereas the reality was about half that, on a good day. There was no way he was going to catch up with the other competitors or win either of the prizes, unless something extraordinary happened.
\nAnd so, just five weeks after setting off from Teignmouth, Crowhurst started one of the most audacious frauds in sailing history: he began falsifying his position. From 5 December, he created a fake log book, with accurately plotted sun sights, working back from imaginary positions.
\nTo make it look convincing, he listened to forecasts for the relevant areas and wrote a fictional commentary as if he was experiencing those conditions. It was quite a feat of seamanship, and only someone of Crowhurst\u2019s brilliance could have carried it off convincingly.
\nThe great deception
\nAfter a few days\u2019 practice he felt sufficiently confident to send his first \u2018fake\u2019 press release, claiming he\u2019d sailed 243 miles in 24 hours, a new world record for a single-handed sailor. In fact, he\u2019d actually sailed 160 miles, a personal best perhaps, but certainly no world record.
\nAnd so the great deception began. As Crowhurst slowly worked his way down the Atlantic, his imaginary avatar was already rounding the Cape of Good Hope and heading into the Indian Ocean. Gradually, partly through misunderstandings and partly due to the spin added by his agent back in the UK, Crowhurst\u2019s positions became ever more exaggerated, until it looked like he might win the race after all.
\nMeanwhile, the real Crowhurst was pottering around the Atlantic \u2013 \u2018hiding\u2019 in exactly the same area he had, only a few weeks earlier, jokingly suggested a sailor might hide to falsify a round-the-world voyage. To make sure his radio signals weren\u2019t picked up by the wrong land stations, he maintained radio silence for nearly three months, from the middle of January until the beginning of April, which he blamed on his generator breaking down again.
\nTeignmouth Electron was found drifting in mid-Atlantic, 700 miles west of the Azores, on 10 July 1969
\nUnbelievably, he even put ashore in a remote bay near Buenos Aires in Argentina to buy materials to repair one of the hulls, which had started to fall apart. Despite being greeted and logged by local officials, this rule-breaking stop remained undetected.
\nOn 29 March he reached his most southerly point, hovering a few miles off the Falklands, 8,000 miles from home, before starting his ascent up the Atlantic.
\nFinally, on 9 April, he broke radio silence and exploded back into the race with a telegram containing the infamous line: \u201cHEADING DIGGER RAMREZ\u201d \u2013 suggesting he was approaching Diego Ramirez, a small island southwest of Cape Horn (in reality, he was just off Buenos Aires).
\nBy this time Moitessier had had his \u2018moment of madness\u2019 and had dropped out of the race and was sailing to Tahiti \u2018to save his soul\u2019. The only other competitors left were Knox-Johnston, who was plodding slowly up the Atlantic and on track to be the first one home, and Tetley, racing in his wake to pick up the prize for the fastest voyage.
\nRachel Weisz plays Clare Crowhurst in The Mercy
\nIt seems likely that Crowhurst was planning to finish a close second to Tetley, which would save him from financial ruin without drawing too much attention to his fraudulent log books.
\nBut his reappearance in the race had a dramatic effect on the course of events. Already nursing a broken boat up the homeward leg of the Atlantic, Tetley worried he might lose the speed record to the resurgent Crowhurst, and started pushing his trimaran faster towards the finish line. Some 1,100 miles from home, the inevitable happened: Tetley\u2019s boat broke up and sank, and he had to be rescued by a passing ship.
\nSuddenly, the spotlight shifted to Crowhurst, the unlikely amateur who\u2019d apparently come out of nowhere to beat the professionals. The BBC had a crew on standby to record his homecoming and hundreds of thousands of people were expected to throng the seafront at Teignmouth to welcome him home.
\nIt was everything Crowhurst dreaded. As one of the winners, his books would come under much closer scrutiny \u2013 and indeed there were already some, including race chairman Francis Chichester, who suspected something wasn\u2019t quite right.
\nIn the middle of June, Crowhurst reached the Sargasso Sea and, as the tradewinds died and his boat slowed down, he descended into a mental quagmire of his own. It was as if all his previous failures had caught up with him in this one grand, final failure.
\nTeignmouth Electron on Cayman Brac in 1991. The wreck has deteriorated considerably since. Photo: Geophotos \/ Alamy
\nAnd this time there was no way out, no way of reinventing himself. Instead, he gave up \u2018sailorising\u2019 and resorted to philosophising instead. Over the course of a week, he wrote a 25,000-word manifesto that described how mankind had achieved such an advanced evolutionary state that it could now merge with the cosmos. All that was needed was \u2018an effort of free will\u2019.
\nHe ended his journal on 1 July with this desperate appeal: \u2018I will only resign this game \/ if you agree that \/ the next occasion that this \/ game is played \/ it will be played \/ according to the \/ rules that are devised by \/ my great god who has \/ revealed at last to his son \/ not only the exact nature \/ of the reason for games but \/ has also revealed the truth of \/ the way of the ending of the \/ next game that \/ It is finished \/ It is finished \/ IT IS THE MERCY\u2019
\nThere then followed a countdown, ending at 11:20:40 precisely. It\u2019s not known what happened next, but it\u2019s generally assumed Crowhurst jumped over the side of the boat to his death. His empty yacht was found by a passing ship on 10 July with two sets of log books on board: the real and the fake.
\nIt was left to Sunday Times journalists Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall to piece together what had happened and to reveal to the world Crowhurst\u2019s elaborate hoax. With Crowhurst and Tetley both out of the race, Knox-Johnston, on his slow wooden tortoise of a boat, was the only person to finish the race and was duly award both prizes \u2013 though he subsequently donated the \u00a35,000 cash prize to Crowhurst\u2019s widow.
\nHuge public interest
\nThe Golden Globe race generated enormous public interest at the time, and the discovery of Crowhurst\u2019s boat was front page news. It\u2019s a fascination that has continued almost unabated to this day. The French film Les Quarantie\u0300mes Rugissants, based on the Crowhurst story, was released in 1982, while at least five plays have picked up the theme, as well as the 1998 opera Ravenshead.
\nThere have been several books published about Crowhurst and the race more generally, although none of them add anything substantial to the story told by Tomalin and Hall in their 1970 book The Strange Story of Donald Crowhurst.
\nIn 2006, the acclaimed documentary Deep Water incorporated contemporary footage of the race, including some shot by Crowhurst during his voyage, and in 2017 director Simon Rumley released his own stylised take on the story, called simply Crowhurst.
\nThe Mercy, then, is only the latest take on the Crowhurst saga \u2013 although with Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz on board, it is the most high-profile. So how does it compare to previous efforts?
\nAs you\u2019d expect of such a mainstream movie, the focus is firmly on the psychological drama rather than on the sailing \u2013 which is probably just as well considering how often films get the details of sailing wrong. There are some minor errors \u2013 Chichester wasn\u2019t the first person to sail around the world single-handed, and the prize for the first competitor to finish the race was a trophy, not \u00a35,000 \u2013 but the sailing scenes are generally quite convincing.
\nMore importantly though, The Mercy is a captivating psychological drama, which shows how, through a series of small steps, a person can box themselves into a corner from which there is no escape. It\u2019s this humbling of a deluded but essentially well-meaning man that gives the story such resonance and has inspired artists and writers for more than five decades. For, as anyone who has sailed out of sight of land knows, the sea has a knack of bringing out our inner demons. There is a Crowhurst in us all.
\nFirst published in the March 2018 edition of Yachting World.
\nThe post Donald Crowhurst: The fake round-the-world sailing story behind The Mercy appeared first on Yachting World.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The mysterious and tragic disappearance of the single-handed sailor Donald Crowhurst more than 50 years ago continues to fascinate. Nic Compton explains why… Hailed as a round the world single-handed hero, Donald Crowhurst in fact never left the Atlantic during … <\/p>\n