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Title: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst by Nicholas Tomalin, Ron Hall ISBN: 0-07-141429-0 Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press Pub. Date: 30 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Man and His Ship
Comment: Donald Crowhurst left England on October 31, 1968 to participate in a around-the-world, non-stop, solo sailing race. He was the next to last competitor to leave, just before the deadline. His boat, the Teignmouth Electron, was a trimaran.
He sailed at a disappointingly slow speed for a while and then reported a few amazingly fast days. Radio communications halted as he approached the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and nothing was heard from him for 111 days.
Then radio communications resumed as he re-entered the South Atlantic, around Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. He was leading the race, and seemed assured of the trophy and the cash prize of £5,000. Then, on July 10, 1969, his boat was found drifting in the Atlantic, with no sign of Crowhurst on board.
This book is the sad detective story of this voyage. Crowhurst never left the Atlantic Ocean, let alone sail around the world. He left massive documentation which showed that he had cheated. Presumably, rather than complete his fraudulent voyage, he stepped into the ocean and left the evidence for people to examine.
Although these facts are known prior to even picking up the book, the author still comes to a very surprising conclusion. This is a book about what was going on in the mind of this sad man who seems to have gone mad. It is a fascinating and worthwhile read.
Rating: 5
Summary: Tragedy at Sea
Comment: Thanks to the authors' well balanced account of Donald Crowhurst's early years and his participation in the first non-stop sailing race around the world, this book transcends the nautical genre by far. As such, the story of a rather inexperienced sailor starting a grueling endeavor on a poorly designed and only partially finished boat contains elements from some eminent literary precursors and evolves into a true to life version of crime and punishment.
Devoid of any attempt to overanalyze, the authors start this book with an account of Crowhurst's early years. The daredevil character that is portrayed is well in line with a personality that would feel challenged by an impossible task like the one facing Crowhurst later. On top of that, the recurrent theme of a person breaking into new territory to leave tangled situations behind gives an important clue to his behavior under the stress of his sailing voyage.
Having burned his bridges and created a presumed win or lose all situation, Crowhurst sets out ill-prepared on a partially finished boat, that has already shown clear design flaws and was put together in too much of a hurry. Rather than face obvious defeat Crowhurst chooses the risk and the impossible mission of sailing around the world. Although he initially tries to make the most of the situation, he soon realizes that he will not win the race and possibly not survive a trip through the rough waters beyond the Cape. In a Shakespearean 'to be or not to be situation' this Hamlet decides to perpetrate fraud rather than admitting failure. Making up false nautical positions along the way and forced to radio silence not to give away true position, Cowhurst never leaves the Atlantic Ocean, makes some repairs in Argentina and bides his time while some competitors drop out or make real progress. Ending up in winning position Crowhurst turns himself in a real life Raskolnikov and philosophizes himself into madness and ultimately suicide.
Especially, since the approach in this book is entirely journalistic, analytical and objective this story gives a rare detailed 'play-by-play' account of someone going of the deep end. Based on a twisted interpretation of a line in Einstein's own book on Relativity, decent skills in mathematics and analytical reasoning and quite a bit of creativity, Crowhurst sets his mind on a track that degenerates in self destruction. While this is in no way the first account of advancing psychopathology, both Crowhurst isolation and hardships and the impossible task he has set himself make this a heart wrenching story. Thanks to the excellent introduction there is ample indication that both Crowhurst nurture and nature on the one hand, and Mother Nature on the other, provided him with a challenge he failed to meet.
Thanks to the journalistic approach and excellent writing this story is still gripping in a world whose technical advances have made a repetition of Crowhurst's attempt at pulling a fast one all but impossible. Thus, the portrayal of the sailor's slow mental degradation competes with the very best accounts in fiction.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Sea-Tinged Madness
Comment: A true "Sailor's Classic." Reading this book it is impossible not to feel compassion for Donald Crowhurst who set out to win the Golden Globe challenge as the first man to nonstop circumnavigate the world alone in a sailboat.
Crowhurst's early years are well-documented and give us a picture of a driven and compulsive man with some serious character flaws and an aversion to failure. Yet failure was a condition which dogged him throughout his life.
Crowhurst's decision to undertake the circumnavigation was both dramatic and ill-considered. With relatively little sailing experience and a lot of bluff he convinced his sponsors to fund the building of a revolutionary trimaran, the "Teignmouth Electron" equipped with all manner of electronic wizardry (Crowhurst had invented a sort of early GPS, the Navicator, in the mid-60's).
Unfortunately, the "Teignmouth Electron" was never properly completed, the race deadline having intervened, and Crowhurst sailed in a boat that was unfinished, poorly provisioned, and untested, having done miserably in what passed for sea trials.
Setting out on the latest possible day, Crowhurst found himself limping along at a ridiculously slow pace three weeks later. Plagued by equipment failures, the "Teignmouth Electron" was taking water due to design flaws, and had no real chance of completing the race. Having staked all on a successful outcome, the tension and isolation of his predicament attacked Crowhurst's mind.
In a fit of brilliant madness, Donald Crowhurst spent hours working out and logging false positions, sun sights, weather reports, and sailing notations to make it seem he was circling the earth while in fact he meandered pointlessly through the South Atlantic for months. He even secretly put in to port for repairs, a fact which was not discovered until after the race, when his "real" logs were reviewed by investigators.
Crowhurst's position reports and daily runs were diligently reported onshore; he was (falsely) credited with a record run of 243 miles in one day, a record he actually matched in reality once he decided to begin sailing in earnest again.
In the meantime, for all the world knew, Crowhurst was going to be the winner of the Golden Globe. As he turned toward home, the media hoopla grew wilder, and so did his delusions. His log entries degenerated into irrational philosophic and religious ramblings in which he began to believe himself God. In the end, tortured by his demons and consumed by guilt, Donald Crowhurst jumped into the sea, leaving his boat to sail on without him.
Brilliantly and sensitively written, without tendering excuses the authors Tomalin and Hall never lose sight of the essential humanity and frailty of their subject, as well as his consuming but undirected brilliance. Relying heavily on Crowhurst's logs, it is devastating to watch the man's mind unravel in the face of his aloneness.
Crowhurst's singlemindedness got him far, but it ultimately proved his undoing as he was unable to see any but the options he had limited himself to, the ultimate one being his own destruction. As Camus wrote, "In the end there is but one serious philosophical question, and that is suicide." Crowhurst's answer is his legacy.
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Title: Rescue in the Pacific: A True Story of Disaster and Survival in a Force 12 Storm by Tony Farrington ISBN: 0070486190 Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The Saga of Cimba by Richard Maury ISBN: 0071414274 Publisher: International Marine/Ragged Mountain Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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