Lost At Sea
In the summer of 1969, Donald Crowhurst was the wonder of the world: an amateur sailor who had rigged up his own boat for the first Golden Globe circumnavigation race and was suddenly tearing through the sea, beating much more experienced men at their own game.
Then something went very wrong, and when the dust settled, Crowhurst’s terrible secret came out.
1. He Never Fit In
From the beginning, Donald Crowhurst was an outsider. Born in British India in 1932 to British parents, he implicitly enjoyed the privilege of his status all while never being quite able to fit in with the people around him. Then, when India gained independence in 1947, the family moved back to England, uprooting him to another strange place. Though, there was more than just geographical alienation going on.
2. His Mother Wanted Him To Be Someone Else
While she was pregnant with him, Crowhurst’s mother was desperate for a girl. This didn’t change when he was actually born; in fact, it got worse. Like Ernest Hemingway before him, Crowhurst’s mother dressed him up in girls’ clothes to abet her denial, keeping up the charade for seven years. These fundamental misalignments would take their toll.
3. He Fell On Hard Times
Upon returning to Britain, the Crowhurst family suffered a series of tragedies. For one, they had put all of their retirement savings into an Indian sporting goods factory, only to receive word that the factory had burned down during riots against the partition of India. Then, in 1948, Donald’s father passed, leaving the family down one valuable income earner. It pushed Donald down the only path he could think of.
4. He Was Forced To Drop Out Of School
In order to help his mother make ends meet in the household, when he was around 16 years old, Donald dropped out of school and entered into an apprenticeship with the Royal Aircraft Establishment, earning a Royal Airforce Commission as a pilot when he made it through. In someone else’s story, this would be the beginning of their rise. It was quite the opposite for Donald Crowhurst.
5. He Blew His Chance
Though Donald Crowhurst received his pilot commission in 1953, in 1954 he had already been asked to leave by the organization. The reasons for this, like so much in Crowhurst’s life, are still largely a mystery, but reportedly involved a night out, a stolen car, and a visit to the Magistrate. Either way, it was the beginning of an unsettling pattern.
6. He Was Kicked Out Of The Army
After the RAF, Donald Crowhurst tried his hand in the British Army’s Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers under commission in 1956. This time, he didn’t even last the year, leaving after yet another vague disciplinary incident. From then on, he seemed to try to forget this period of life; for Crowhurst, it was always onward and upward, until he could go no further.
7. He Tried To Settle Down
Around this time, Donald Crowhurst met and married Clare O’Leary, an Irish woman hailing from Killarney, and went on to have four children with her, including a son Simon, who would watch the upcoming, defining events of his father’s story with terror. For now, though, Crowhurst almost built a life for himself and his family.
8. He Almost Had A Normal Life
By the 1960s, the once unpredictable Crowhurst had eked out something like a normal life, having moved to Bridgwater and started a business, Electron Utilisation. He even served on the Bridgwater Borough Council, and during his off time he was a “weekend sailor,” tinkering with his boats for pleasure. Then he began mixing that pleasure with business.
9. He Was Obsessive
Crowhurst was always doing something with his hands, and during these years he designed and built navigational equipment for naval endeavours, including a radio direction finder called the Navicator. He then began selling these pieces through his business, and even saw some modest success at first. But just at first.
10. He Was Desperate
Soon enough, Donald Crowhurst was floundering financially, and in barely a better position than he had been as a teenager trying to scrape together money for his mother. This was something he couldn’t abide by, and he began thinking up any way he could to keep himself afloat.
He landed on what he thought was an ingenious solution to all his worries: A sailing race to the ends of the Earth.
11. He Got A Golden Opportunity
In 1967, sailor Francis Chichester completed a circumnavigation of the globe solo and in record time, finishing in just nine months and one day, and with only one stop. Eager to capitalize off the back of his feat, the Sunday Times, which had sponsored Chichester’s run, now proposed the even more difficult Golden Globe Race, which would require the same endeavour, but non-stop. It was a challenge Crowhurst couldn’t refuse.
12. He Found The Solution To All His Problems
There were three enormous draws for Donald Crowhurst to the Golden Globe Race. First, just like Chichester, he could attract publicity (and thus future business) with his adventure. Second, the race was, unusually, open to all applicants while other races required participants to prove their sailing bona fides, meaning Crowhurst’s amateur sailing experience was no barrier to entry. Third, and most importantly, the winner would earn £5,000 in cash, equivalent to £73,000 today.
Dreaming of his glory and a return to financial stability, Crowhurst got to work.
13. He Made His Own Boat
At first Crowhurst aimed high when it came to the vessel that would win him renown, attempting to get ahold of the Gipsy Moth IV, the very same boat that Chichester had used in his own circumnavigation. When his efforts failed, however, he began making his own boat, a modified 40-feet trimaran type-vessel. But this may have been Crowhurst’s first error.
14. He Made The Wrong Choice
At the time, trimarans (which have three hulls, hence the name) were largely unproven in lengthy voyages, and although they could go faster than the more regularly-used monohulled sailboats, they often didn’t, as they went much slower when overloaded. They also had difficulty sailing “close to the wind” (that is, going as directly into oncoming wind as possible) and, perhaps most dangerous of all, were nearly impossible to right once capsized.
Yet even with all these flaws, Donald Crowhurst managed to make it worse.
15. He Scraped Together A Sponsor
Although Crowhurst estimated the construction of his boat at £6,000 or almost £90,000 today, his final numbers were actually about double this amount—and Crowhurst was already low on cashflow. To counteract this, he received the sponsorship of businessman Stanley Best, who had already invested in Crowhurst’s Electron Utilisation and hoped a race success would help him recoup his contribution and more.
Best had little way of knowing Crowhurst was already ruining himself.
16. He Bet Everything On Winning
Donald Crowhurst couldn’t fund his race on Best’s investments alone, and besides hiring Rodney Hallworth, a crime reporter by trade, to act as his PR representative, he also put his own livelihood on the line to set sail. By the time the race began, Crowhurst had mortgaged both his business and home, pushing himself into an increasingly precarious position. All the while, time ticked on.
17. He Raced To The Start
In order to pass through the Southern Ocean in a safer season, participants of the Golden Globe Race were required to start between June 1 and October 31, 1968. There was precious little time from the announcement of this race to its deadline, and it wasn’t surprising that only eight other contestants entered alongside Crowhurst, among them experienced sailors Robin Knox-Johnston and Nigel Tetley.
But Crowhurst was determined, right up to the very last second.
18. He Had A Plan
As people like Knox-Johnston sailed off early in the start period, Crowhurst kept tinkering with his vessel, cleverly putting an inflatable buoyancy bag on the top of the mast alongside water sensors to keep the trimaran from fatally capsizing. Indeed, this was all part of his business plan: He wanted to showcase the value of his inventions to the world when he sailed, then sell them afterward. But he ran right out of time.
19. He Ran Out Of Time
October came, and, between begging for sponsors and scraping together money, Donald Crowhurst and his ship were nowhere near ready for his punishing around-the-world journey. Every single one of his safety devices were incomplete, and he planned to just complete them on the long trip. Then it came time for his final goodbyes, though he didn’t know it at the time.
20. He Had A Last Goodbye
Before setting off to the position of the race start, Donald Crowhurst gathered his family on the shore, including his then eight-year-old son Simon. “Look after your mother,” he told the boy, who wasn’t yet at all worried about his father. As Simon later recalled, "We just had no idea what an immense journey 'round the world' was. Or what the risks were, really”.
But Crowhurst did try to mitigate some of that risk, albeit at the very last minute.
21. A Veteran Sailor Worried About Him
On October 13, days before the final day allowed, Lieutenant Commander Peter Eden, a veteran sailor, offered to come with Donald Crowhurst on his last leg to the town of Teignmouth, where he would push off. Although Eden acknowledged that Crowhurst had proper sailing technique, he was dismayed at the state of the boat, which was certainly fast but couldn’t approach the wind any closer than 60 degrees.
Moreover, when it did go fast, the on-deck vibrations would loosen vital screws. The man helming it wasn’t much better.
22. He Was Clumsy
Eden noted that Crowhurst’s navigation skills left much to be desired, and the sailor was prone to “merely jotting down figures on a few sheets of paper from time to time”. Embarrassingly, Crowhurst also fell off the boat several times on his journey to the start line, once right in front of Eden as they climbed aboard.
But come hell or high water, Crowhurst was going to have his race. He was going to get both hell and high water.
23. He Finally Set Sail
At last, Donald Crowhurst pushed off from Teignmouth on October 31, the very last day he could and still be eligible for the race’s prize money. It looked like a last-minute job, too. There were instant issues with the boat, as some of his hatches didn’t seal properly and were constantly bringing in seawater. To add to this, he had left a vital hose, which would have helped him pump out the water, on shore.
So, in the first few weeks, Crowhurst went half as fast as he wanted. It brought him to a horrible epiphany.
24. He Had An Immediate Disaster
Donald Crowhurst was a dreamer at heart, but even he could see this had turned into a nightmare. Alone and trapped in the middle of the open water, he knew he simply could not properly finish the race. He also knew his only options were to quit and face his financial ruin and embarrassment, or keep going on and face a likely demise.
He couldn’t imagine stomaching either, so he made his own destiny.
25. He Shocked Everyone
In the winter of 1968, a massive change took place aboard Crowhurst’s ship. His radio completely shut down, though even before this Crowhurst had been making only vague references to his location. When it came back online, what it reported was miraculous: Crowhurst was making such ground, he would likely be the winner of the fastest circumnavigation.
Plus, while Crowhurst rose in the public’s esteem, other contestants faltered.
26. His Competition Narrowed Down
The race was a punishing endeavor, and in early February one of the precious few participants, French sailor Bernard Moitessier, dropped out of the race. Then one of the contenders for the win, Nigel Tetley, pushed his boat so hard that it failed entirely, forcing him to abandon ship tantalizingly close to the finish line.
By the end of May, 1969, only Robin Knox-Johnston had made it to the finish, clocking in at 312 days, But, thanks to his late start time, Donald Crowhurst could still beat Knox-Johnston and win the money on actual elapsed time—if, that is, he could ever be seen again.
27. They Found His Ship
On June 29, Crowhurst made a radio transmission to the rapt public, who seemed to expect him to come sailing in at any minute. It was the last anyone heard of him. On July 10, the Royal Mail Ship Picardy stumbled on Crowhurst’s unmoving Teignmouth Electron, eerily close to where the ghost ship Mary Celeste had been found. When sailors boarded and entered it, it got more disturbing.
28. He Went Missing
The Teignmouth Electron had signs of the man who had lived there for the past months: it was messy and had evidence of work and cooking. What it didn’t have was Crowhurst himself, and it looked like the vessel had been abandoned a good while before, though no one could tell why.
For the moment, the world was at a loss, and Crowhurst’s family and fellow sailors reeled.
29. His Family Received A Life-Changing Gift
Immediately upon hearing of his nearest rival’s apparent demise, race finisher Robin Knox-Johnston donated his precious £5,000 winnings to Crowhurst’s widow Clare and his four children. There was even some talk (soon abandoned) of displaying the Teignmouth Electron and charging visitors a fee that would go to the Crowhurst family. But it wasn’t long before the awful truth emerged.
30. He Left Behind Three Books
When the would-be rescuers entered the Teignmouth Electron, they found no Crowhurst, of course, but they did find three logbooks (two navigational logs as well as his radio logs) that were curiously placed in a prominent spot, It was as if Crowhurst wanted anyone who came along to look right at them.
When they opened the notebooks, jaws began to drop.
31. He Had Been Lying To Everyone
Everyone had assumed that Crowhurst was nearing completion of the race, and when they found his ship, it now seemed he had pushed himself so hard that he had made a fatal error. But his logbooks showed that all this was a complete lie.
In fact, Crowhurst had been forging his coordinates for weeks, months even, all while logging his true coordinates in a separate logbook.
32. He Wanted To Come In Last
After poring over the evidence, the true picture of Crowhurst's supposed journey began to emerge. Far from making breakneck pace, after shutting down his radio in the winter of 1968, Crowhurst stayed hidden and idling around the South Atlantic. He planned to wait there for several months while the other, more experienced sailors made their way back past him, at which point he would slip behind them and, albeit in last place, finish the race. In one way, this was a genius move.
33. He Thought It Could Still Work
For the desperate and financially strapped Crowhurst, this subterfuge was the only plan that made sense. With it, he would be able to “finish” the race and save face, possibly even gaining some financial stability from the press it earned him. Besides, since he would be in last place, he believed the race committee wouldn’t look too closely at his logs.
If this had worked out, no one may have been the wiser about Crowhurst’s deception. And it almost did.
34. He Broke The Rules Again
For months, Crowhurst flitted around the southern Atlantic Ocean, even breaking the non-stop race rules and going ashore in South America to perform repairs on his ship. Throughout, he kept his almost near radio silence, though he was apparently aware of how the other sailors were faring. In fact, it was this knowledge that may have ultimately doomed him.
35. He Was Backed Into A Corner
When The Golden Globe Race’s already minimal contestants dwindled to just Crowhurst and Knox-Johnston after Moitessier and Tetley dropped out, Crowhurst must have realized he was in deep trouble. After all, now no matter what he did, if he ever made it home he would be in second place and subject to much more scrutiny about the true coordinates of his trip. But there was also a deeper problem.
36. He Was Guilty
Crowhurst had spent a lifetime trying to prove and sell himself, but it appeared he hadn’t yet sold his soul. Given what would soon happen, many historians believe Crowhurst was also wracked with guilt over Nigel Tetley’s shipwreck, as Tetley had been pushing his ship too hard in the first place because he thought he was neck-and-neck with the (actually stationary) Teignmouth Electron.
But as investigators delved into Crowhurst’s logbooks and records, their horror grew.
37. His Writings Turned Delusional
As Crowhurst got further into his false trip, he began to exhibit signs of mental illness, perhaps due to his guilt and the split life he was living. On June 24, just days before he abandoned ship, he wrote down, under “Philosophy,” a series of rambling, nearly hallucinatory thoughts. This included his belief that life was a “game” supervised by “cosmic beings” who acted as gods. It led Crowhurst to a disturbing conclusion.
38. He Had Bizarre Ideas
Crowhurst’s writings indicate that he believed man could become a “second generation cosmic being” himself if his will was strong enough, and thus withdraw from “the game” and enter a world of “abstract intelligence” where the body was no longer relevant. These and other writings lead many to believe Crowhurst was speaking of the end of his own life, if in roundabout terms. He would only get more explicit.
39. He Couldn’t Stop Writing
Over the next week, Crowhurst wrote 25,000 words in this logbook, most of them detailing his various beliefs about “the game” and his place within it. His thought processes deteriorated even further, with his musings turning ever darker and more incoherent. “The quick are the quick and the dead are dead,” he wrote in one entry. It all built to a final confession.
40. He Made His Last Entry
On July 1, 1969, at around 10 am, Crowhurst sat down for 80 minutes to write what would be the last entries in his logbook, and the last anyone ever heard of him. He began by stating he couldn’t “see any ‘purpose in game,” lamenting—seemingly in a reference to the Golden Globe Race—that he “must resign position in sense that if I set myself ‘impossible’ task then nothing achieved by game”.
As Crowhurst’s delirium crescendoed, he then wrote four words that still haunt people today.
41. He Wrote Four Haunting Words
In one of his final entries, Crowhurst wrote: “It is finished – It is finished” and then, confoundingly, “IT IS THE MERCY”. After this, he penned just two further entries before stopping entirely sometime before noon on this marathon day. Then, he disappeared into history.
But there is evidence of one further act.
42. He Took Something With Him
Sometime after Crowhurst’s last diary entry, the ship’s chronometer went missing, leading many to believe Crowhurst disposed of it for reasons known only to him. More than that, although it was clear he had been giving fake coordinates to the world, only the “true” logbook with his actual position was left behind on the ship, and some theorize he got rid of a “fake” logbook at this time as well.
What happened immediately after this is at the heart of Crowhurst’s mystery.
43. He May Have Ended It All
With no catastrophe evident on the Teignmouth Electron, investigators kept drawing one overwhelming conclusion: Crowhurst likely stepped overboard and drowned himself. Whether driven by the desire to become a “second generation cosmic being” or his own guilt, he seems to have taken his own life in a final act of desperation. Though, not everyone thinks so.
44. His Widow Defended Him
Crowhurst’s widow Clare remained convinced that, whatever had happened to her husband, he had not taken his own life. Writing to The Times on July 10, 1970, a year to the day Crowhurst’s abandoned ship was found, Clare insisted that there was no evidence Crowhurst ever wrote a fake logbook and that his demise could have very well been accidental. She did have some valid reasons for believing this.
45. It Could Have Been An Accident
For one, Crowhurst’s fake logbook never was found, whether he took it with him or it never existed at all. For another, one of Crowhurst’s logbook entries from around this time mentioned he wanted to climb the ship’s mast, from which an accidental fall could have very well killed him—and Crowhurst did have a bad habit of accidentally falling out of the boat. There are other possibilities, too.
46. More Whispers Went Around
In the heady days following the discovery of the Teignmouth Electron and Crowhurst’s last recorded words, a myriad of theories flew around as to what really happened. Some thought he may have gotten food poisoning that affected his rationality, while others insisted he had meant to fake his own demise, and was still alive somewhere.
Nonetheless, all of these are extremely unlikely, and the prevailing thought is that he did take his own life. Even so, as his widow Clare admitted, “I suppose we will never know what happened at the end”.
47. His Son Came To Terms With His Act
Even Donald Crowhurst’s son Simon, who was old enough to be aware of his father’s journey at the time and fearful of its outcome as the drama unfolded, believes his father died by his own hand. However, he doesn’t term it “suicide” because he believes his father wouldn’t have thought of it as such. “He saw it as a kind of transformation into another state of being,” Simon stated.
48. He Suffered From Mental Illness
It’s not just Donald Crowhurst’s ultimate end that remains the subject of debate; many also wonder what mental illness gripped him in those final days. His biographers, Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, believed he suffered from “classical paranoia,” while the clinical psychologist Geoff Powter suggested bipolar disorder based on the ups and downs in mood of his log books.
49. His Ship Met A Sad End Too
Crowhurst’s ship, the Teignmouth Electron, suffered its own kind of tragic fate. After being passed over as an exhibit, she was refitted as a cruise boat in Montego Bay, then as a dive boat in the Cayman Islands, before becoming damaged from a hurricane and never repaired. Those still interested in Crowhurst’s legend can view its decaying remains on the southwest shore of Cayman Brac in the Islands.
50. His Legacy Is Complicated
Donald Crowhurst’s legacy is as ever-changing as the man himself was. Although outrage and infamy accompanied the first reports of his deception, the disturbing contents of his logbooks, with his mental anguish displayed for all to see, have since made him into a kind of tragic hero, brought down by his own hubris and terrible dream.
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