Donald Crowhurst: a lesson in passion and madness

I recently came across the story of Donald Crowhurst, in the film, Deep Water. As a junkie for all things nautical myself, the story of Crowhurst is a haunting one. Crowhurst was an English businessman and amateur sailor who participated in The Sunday Times Golden Globe sailboat race in the late 60′s. At the time, the race was billed as the biggest and most brutal test of human endurance, both physically and mentally. The Golden Globe was a single handed race around the world, taking the competitors into the most dangerous and horrible latitudes on planet earth. Crowhurst, unsatisfied with his business life wanted to achieve something great; something that would prove his abilities on the toughest proving ground that exists.

He risked everything thing to do it. If he should fail, or drop out of the race early, his sponsors would demand that he pay for the boat he designed, which would in essence, bankrupt him and leave his family in squalor. He set out on October 31st, 1968 on the last day allowed by race officials. His trimaran, the Teignmouth Electron was designed for speed and efficiency. Unfortunately, the boat was all but either. Somewhere off the coast of Brazil, on his way to rounding the Cape of Good Hope, one of Crowhurst’s hulls began taking on water, that in fair weather he could bail by hand. But he realized that he couldn’t sail into the southern ocean, with the luxury of being able to move around deck, and chase the other competitors given his derelict boat. But instead of throwing in the towel, and risking humiliation and financial ruin, Crowhurst chose a course who’s only outcome was madness. He began reporting his position as much farther along than he was, and then, started keeping an alternate log book with fabricated positions placing him far ahead of where he actually was. In order to complete the fabrication, he made a final transmission, saying that his transmitter was failing. Then, he would maintain radio silence for four months in order to keep from giving away his true position, while his family and friends would fear the worst. Instead of continuing on, he would quietly put into Brazil for repairs, hoping to be unnoticed and then would return to sea to wait for the other competitors to round Cape Horn, where he could slide into the back of the pack and return home. Gambling on his back of the pack finish, he believed his fabricated log book wouldn’t be scrutinized. Once the other racers passed him, making his position behind, but acceptable, he broke radio silence much to the high delight of the English public. But events occurred which would make other competitors drop out, putting him in a better position to possibly even win. No one knows exactly what occurred next. But madness surely ensued. He wrote his own manifesto, heavily cryptic, which served possibly as an attempt to reconcile his personal secret with himself. His boat was later found, in seaworthy shape, without Donald. It is theorized that he committed suicide. Adventure is the incarnation of a bright and limitless dawn of new experience, but experience is what it takes to know one’s limits. Below, his yacht sits abandoned on Cayman Brac.