Talk:Donald Crowhurst

Best word to describe Donald...
Presently (Aug 2023) we have the word "businessman" in the opening sentence of the lede to describe Donald at the time of his entry into the Golden Globe Race. I note that a previous effort to change this to "inventor" was reverted some years back, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Donald_Crowhurst/Archives/2017#Reverting_of_new_lede_29/10/15. Clearly "businessman" is not incorrect (he did run a business after all, not too successful by all accounts) but I am not convinced this is necessarily the best word to describe him - after all, many people run businesses (could be import-export, anything that turns a profit) but few do what Donald did - in effect he *was* an inventor, of devices that he thought would make his fortune, and apparently spent many hours tinkering in his workshop devising new ones or whatever - not really the role of a conventional businessman. In reality his business venture was set up as a means to market and profit from his inventions, of which the Navicator was merely the first cab off the rank. (Others might include the self-righting system for trimarans, plus his onboard "computer").

I note that in the list of contestants for the race he was described as an electronics engineer (per Tomalin & Hall, "Prologue" p. xiv); another word that might suit could be "entrepeneur", defined here as "someone who starts their own business, especially when this involves seeing a new opportunity" which does more or less foot the bill, perhaps.

Thoughts, anyone? Tony 1212 (talk) 03:47, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposed external link
I first heard about his story through https://wondery.com/shows/british-scandal/episode/8860-the-race-to-ruin-round-the-world/ would it be appropriate to add a link to this podcast series as an External Link?