MADNESS AT SEA: The Lost Captain | Last Moments

on the 10th of july 1969 a yacht is found adrift in the atlantic log books audio recordings and film footage found on board describe the journey of the sailboat's lone captain attempting a record-breaking voyage around the world but the captain is nowhere to be found and his recordings seem to be telling two contradictory tales in 1967 francis chichester made headlines with a historic single-handed circumnavigation his tour took 226 days marking the fastest sailing around the world at that point his journey included a single stop in sydney the question then was if chichester could travel around the world making only one stop who could do it without making any british newspaper the sunday times issued the challenge in 1968. anyone who sailed out from any british port between the 1st of june and the 31st of october was automatically in the running to complete a single-handed non-stop tour of the world via the three caves the first one to do so would receive the golden globe trophy and the second award for the fastest time was 5 000 pounds a substantial amount in 1968 being roughly equivalent to 80 000 today nine men stepped up to the challenge eight of them experienced and accomplished seamen but the ninth and no-name hobbyist was considerably out of place in the lineup this was donald crowhurst donald crowhurst was born in 1932 in british india his family returned to england shortly after india's independence in 1947. the family had little savings and after his father's death in 1948 donald was forced to cut his education short and take on work he trained as an apprentice at the royal aircraft establishment before joining the raf from here he drifted into the army as an engineer but had to leave shortly after owing to a drunken high drink involving a stolen car over the next few years he gained employment in electronics while he married and started a family of four children in 1962 he started his own company electron utilization to manufacture electronic devices for yachts pro hurst had an interest in sailing the company developed the navigator a radio direction finder crowhurst was described as an intelligent eccentric a tinkerer with an intense charisma unfortunately he was no businessman and electronic utilization began to run into financial trouble for crowhurst this was the latest in a string of promising careers that had gone awry but now with his own company the stakes were higher and crohurst was determined that this time things would be different he managed to secure a thousand pound investment from a local businessman but when his financial troubles proved not to be temporary he was in an even tighter spot than before then krollhurst learned of the golden globe race he reckons that if he competed in the race he could use the publicity to draw interest in the sailing devices he manufactured the idea being that if his prototype devices could allow an amateur sailor to compete on the world stage they would be proven as innovative essentials for all sailors donald had never undertaken a voyage even close to one of this magnitude but with his company failing he decided he'd just have to give it his best shot though his investor was looking for a return crowhurst was able to use his charisma to sell his idea and the investor agreed to sponsor crohurst in the race and fund the construction of a specially designed boat crowhurst hired an agent to act as his public relations officer and based his race campaign in tinmouth devon the boat he commissioned was to be a trimaran a very fast sailboat but such a design was unproven for a journey of this length and crowhurst had never sailed one before one of the problems with trimarans is they are virtually impossible to write once capsized one of crowhurst's inventions he planned on proving was a system that could detect an impending capsize via water sensors and inflate a buoyancy bag on top of the mast this would prevent the boat from turning completely underwater and an arrangement of pumps would allow him to flood sections of the boat to pull it upright again however by the time the boat had begun construction in late june three contestants had already set sail crowhurst finally had his boat the tin myth electron at port on the 31st of october just hours before the race's deadline after some complications that delayed the launch he finally set sail out of tin port and donald crowhurst's journey across the world had begun it's important not to underestimate the difficulty of the task he was undertaking his voyage would be physically demanding fighting against rough seas as well as mentally demanding he would have to endure months of solitude out in the waters it's a challenging trip for an experienced sailor donald crowhurst was an amateur but he hoped his unconventional speedy sailboat and his inventions would give him the edge over his competitors and his high-stakes scenario provide him the willpower to complete the race after all what choice did he have unfortunately complications and rushing had meant his sailboat was incomplete none of his inventions were properly installed crowhears dismissed this as an inconvenience he would simply set them up on the journey after two days at sea and still within sight of britain the screws came off his self-steering as he had no spares he had to cannibalize other parts of the boat to replace them a few days later he ran into more problems in the bay of biscay his boat had a number of leaks and as he couldn't get the pipes for his pumps he had to bail the water out with a bucket in his logbook he cursed the shoddy engineering of the boat making a long list of problems and work he would need to do to fix them among these was the generator breaking down due to water damage his progress was falling short of his estimates too he had hoped to get an average of 220 miles a day from the boat but he was barely reaching half that he had little faith the boat could complete the circumnavigation in this state began to realize how naive he'd been at this stage he estimated that should he continue on his chances of survival were 50 50 at best but turning around was a hard sell for crohurst giving up this early in the race would be humiliating and would deal a serious blow to his already failing business he knew going in that this race might be his only chance to save electron utilization to make matters worse he had mortgaged both the business and his home against his investors continued financial backing if he gave up now he lost everything he must finish the race or he must die surrender was not an option five weeks into the trip in early december donald crowhurst was still in the north atlantic well behind all the other racers realizing that continuing the race was pointless if not suicide krohurst devised a plan that would dramatically alter the series of events that followed instead of taking a route around the world he would simply sail down the atlantic and then loop back up loitering for just long enough to make it seem as if he had spent that time continuing the race to this end he began falsifying his progress by plotting an imaginary route and the sun sights he would use for navigation were he really there he would listen into forecasts for spots along the route and record his imagined experiences of the conditions cabling and telegraphing his agent back home crowhurst had press releases detailing how he had gotten over his rough start and was now making record time still trailing behind the other competitors but not out of the race yet sometime in january krohurst shut off his radio to make sure his signal wouldn't give away his location he went quiet for three months during this time five of the other competitors were forced to withdraw from the race being unable to keep up with treacherous conditions this left just crowhurst and three legitimate competitors who were having a close race crawlhurst drifted down and across the atlantic even stopping in argentina to buy materials to fix his failing boat in late march he'd reached his most southerly point around the falklands and would soon begin to turn around and head back up the atlantic as if he had passed around cape horn sir knox johnston was set to be the first to complete the race having set sail rather early but either nigel tetley or bernard mytissier were likely to make the fastest time crowhurst's three months of radio silence were a worrying sign people plotting the race back home were able to infer his position based on his reported earlier progress and if he kept his pace up he might be able to beat tetley and mytissier however the prolonged silence was not a good sign the solitude of the voyage brought mytissier into a depression and he described the trip as a spiritual journey after passing cape horn he announced he would not be finishing the race despite having most of it complete and having a good chance at winning instead he became a sort of vagabond of the sea continuing his journey until he had circumnavigated the earth nearly twice marking the longest non-stop passage by yacht he left his wife and started a new life in tahiti in april crowhurst re-established contact to announce he had just rounded cape horn putting him in good standing to be tetley he blamed his three-month radio silence on the damaged generator crowhurst had reported the true nature of what he was doing in a log book which he likely intended to discard before coming home he had a lot of time to contemplate his deception and it seems this paired with the fact that he was one of only three remaining contestants cultivated a sense of paranoia within him he knew the improbability of this amateur winning the race would bring him a lot of scrutiny and was worried more experienced sailors would be able to pick apart discrepancies in his reports although it would be nice to win the 5 000 pound cash prize it would be best to trail behind tetley and avoid a rousing suspicion just completing the race should be enough crowhurst's re-emergence in the race was a shock to all including tetley who is now concerned that crowhurst might beat him tetley's boat was in bad shape from the journey but afraid he might have come all this way just to lose he pushed it to its limits on the 30th of may tetley's boat came apart and sank he was lucky a passing ship provided rescue crowhurst's worst nightmare was now realized he would be one of only two sailors to complete the race and likely the one with the fastest time setting such a world record was guaranteed to bring him a lot of scrutinizing eyes being exposed as a fraud now would be even worse than had he given up the race to begin with also he had inadvertently caused tetany the race and almost his life tetley who had been legitimately circumnavigating the world had lost it all just a thousand miles from the finish line all to beat an imaginary opponent over the next month of drifting crowhearst had to deal with this guilt and paranoia he had gotten himself into a situation there was no way out of from here his logbook takes a dark turn all throughout the journey crowhurst's recordings had a philosophical bent likely the result of prolonged isolation but now his mind was deteriorating into manic rambling he had determined that life was but a game played by some cosmic beings and over time he came to the conclusion that he no longer wanted to partake i am what i am and i see the nature of my offense i will only resign this game if you will agree that on the next occasion that this game is played it will be played according to the rules that are devised by my great god who was 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 eleven hours fifteen minutes no seconds it is the end of my my game the truth has been revealed and it will be done as my family require me to do it 11 hours 17 minutes no seconds it is the time for your move to begin i have not need to prolong the game it has been a good game that must be ended at the i will play this game when i choose i will resign the game 11 hours 20 minutes 40 seconds there is no reason for harmful that note was dated the 1st of july it's speculated that the time crowhurst mentions resigning the game was a countdown to suicide when the time came it's thought he jumped overboard to drown himself his remains were never found the tin mouth electron was found over a week later crowhurst had left behind his logs perhaps hoping that they would be found and the truth revealed at the time of his disappearance donald crowhurst was 37 years old he left behind a wife and four children being the only one to complete the race sir knox johnston was awarded the golden globe trophy as well as the 5 000 pounds which he subsequently donated to crowhurst's family yeah but you see i never thought i was going to win that anyway so i didn't really miss it but you know you couldn't really see them thrown out of their house and so ends the tale of donald crowhurst his bizarre story of deception guilt and madness at sea is like an epic tragedy in some aspects it parallels the rime of the ancient mariner with the uncertainty of his ultimate fate we can only hope that he found peace in his last moments keeping a sort of watch on sales by night alone the rigging size a sigh of cosmic sorrow for weeping doves that die may be tomorrow on twelve point seven by ten to the five irradiated olive trees a sigh to fill man's soul with melancholy waves sweep away my melancholy

Channel: Qxir

Views: 2,245,238

Keywords: donald crowhurst, golden globe, sunday times, race, footage, the mercy, 1968, 1969, explained, tapes, note, sir knox johnston, nigel tetley, bernard moitessier, sailing, around the world, circumnavigation, challenge, event, yacht, trimaran, irish, qxir, creepy, creepypasta, scary, dark

Id: h0WgqMn5lTI

Length: 16min 36sec (996 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 29 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Owl_With_No_Pajamas]

Very well done --> Kudos!