Talk:Donald Crowhurst/Archives/2015

Begun
My formating stinks but the facts are pretty much correct from just reading a book about it. Some of the crazyness needs flushing out but I was just trying to get something down today. (unsigned)

Good book
Is there some way we can work into this the fact that the Tomalin and Hall book, while probably not generally famous, is a truly great read? I don't want to just insert POV, but there must be a review of it out there somewhere. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:28, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)


 * According to The Guardian it's "widely regarded as the definitive account", and it is a haunting read, but that sort of thing is hard to express in objective terms. If we had sales figures we could describe it as "X and Y's popular The Strange Last Voyage etc", but we don't. "X and Y's widely-quoted The Strange Last etc"? -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 15:58, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Two sets of log books
Is the following a bit speculative?

His commitment to faking the trip seemed incomplete and self-defeating, as he continued to keep a real log in addition to his false log (emphasis added)

Wouldn't anyone creating a fake log also create a real log, so that he would know where he is (for example, to enable him to get repairs)? He could have destroyed the real log before finishing if required. Andjam 09:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * You're perfectly correct. As Strange Last Voyage explains, you have to keep a "real" log just to sail the boat.  I've taken that comment out. — Johan the Ghost seance 11:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Does the 243 stuff sound right? It seems a little too good to be true, especially if problems with another competitor caused complications. Andjam 11:37, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, the way Tomalin and Hall tell it:
 * he screwed up his cooking alcohol (fuel) allowance, and realised he didn't have as much as planned; when he worked out how much he had, it came to 243 days which he thought would be just about enough (documented in his log, which they have seen)
 * he recorded a false distance of 243 nautical miles in one day's sailing as a claimed record (documented in his cables home)
 * on his way north from the Falklands, he actually made a very fast day's run; they couldn't work it out exactly, but it was very close to 243 days (kind of a guess based on his documented real position log; as I understand it, he didn't calculate the distance himself)
 * his voyage actually lasted 243 days (very well documented).
 * Wow! His "expected" time was 130 days, but that was a ridiculously optimistic estimate designed to drum up sponsorship — his concern over fuel suggests that he didn't believe it himself. — Johan the Ghost seance 17:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC) (updated)
 * Johan, I believe on bullet point 3 you mean 243 (?nautical?) miles rather than days. It would be a minor edit but I wanted to clear it with you first!Orbitalforam 11:12, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The race article
Apologies for letting this get so overdue. I've been working intensively on the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race article, which of course is highly relevant here, and it's high time that I cross-edited the two articles to make sure that they're in step, and to see whether there's any information that they can donate to each other. Any help with this, or any constructive comments, would be much appreciated. Feel free to contribute to the peer review too (see the talk page). — Johan the Ghost seance 11:01, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't arrive here as a result of the Peer Review, but because a program about him was broadcast on the ABC in Australia tonight. Andjam 11:37, 9 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I wasn't very clear — I was referring to the peer review of the Golden Globe article, for which I'm just generally soliciting contributions, as per that article's talk page. — Johan the Ghost seance 13:43, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Donald Crowhurst's motives
I've edited the text a little to reflect the likelihood that Donald Crowhurst never intended to win the race by deception. By the time he broke radio silence he would have assumed that several of the other competitors would have already returned home; when he heard that Knox-Johnston had returned and that he was only (apparently) racing against Nigel Tetley for the elapsed time prize, he seems to have deliberately sailed more slowly to "lose time" against Tetley, presumably to make the finish look close, but not to win, since if he won he knew his log books would be closely scrutinised. His mental breakdown after hearing of Tetley's disaster indicates that this was a disaster for Crowhurst as well, again indicating he did not intend to win. Merely appearing to complete the circumnavigation would have given him the publicity for his company that he sought, and avoided the financial catastrophe that he feared. Tomalin and Hall reached the conclusion that his intention was not to win the prize.

There is slightly more to the "two log books" angle than has yet been discussed. Since the end of the first navigational log was left empty until later in the voyage, it appears that Crowhurst was leaving open the possibility of completing it in one of two possible ways: 1) completing it with the false circumnavigation or 2) copying the accurate positions from the second log book into the first, and then claiming that the few false position reports he had sent (which were deliberately vague and jokey) were simply a "prank". He would have needed to do this if, for example, his landing in South America had been reported, which it might well have been.

Hope this explains why I have made the changes. Orbitalforam 11:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Boat used for fundraising?
The sentence: "Crowhurst's boat was briefly put on display to raise funds for his family, but this fund-raising was stopped at the request of his widow." has recently been inserted. Can this be substantiated? As far as I know the boat was taken to the Caribbean after being picked up in the Atlantic; this would be an unlikely place to fundraise. If it cannot be substantiated then I suggest deleting this sentence.Orbitalforam 15:31, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Concur, I'll remove, pending citation. - Jmabel | Talk 06:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I've just found a newspaper reference regarding the proposal that the boat be used for fund raising, but I am unsure if it ever proceeded. Was the boat ever brought back to England?.--Dmol (talk) 00:01, 13 January 2013 (UTC)
 * No, Teignmouth Electron was never brought back to England, although the idea was suggested a few times. The boat is currently completely unseaworthy in any case; any restoration would be effectively a rebuild. cf Tacita Dean's pictures in her book "Teignmouth Electron", 1999 - and more damage has occurred since then.Orbitalforam (talk) 20:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Chronology of Moitessier's withdrawing from the race
I've corrected the remark that: "The two competitors were now Crowhurst and Bernard Moitessier, but after rounding the tip of South America, Moitessier made a dramatic decision to drop out of the race and recircle the globe." Bernard Moitessier "dropped out" of the race in March 1969, sending a slingshot message to a BP tanker, British Argosy, "My intention is to continue the voyage, still nonstop, towards the Pacific Islands, where there is plenty of sun and more peace than in Europe ... I am continuing nonstop because I am happy at sea, and perhaps because I want to save my soul". This meant that at the time of Nigel Tetley's sinking on May 20th, Moitessier had long been effectively out of the Golden Globe race. Hence the title of the next chapter in "The strange voyage of Donald Crowhurst" (UK title): "The inescapable triumph". It may well have been the inevitability of victory that precipitated Crowhurst's mental deterioration at the end of the voyage, a month after Nigel Tetley's sinking.(Nichols, A voyage for Madmen, p 237 and see also Tomalin and Hall, p188). Orbitalforam (talk) 16:32, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Electrical switch invention.
Is there any details regarding some sort of electrical switch that he invented, that is still in use today. I read this years ago but can't find it now.--Dmol (talk) 01:17, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The switch in question is probably the "rocker" switch (also known as a "decorator" switch in the US) which Crowhurst is rumoured to have helped invent, but I don't know of any published source validating this. The Teignmouth Electron is however regarded by many as the first attempt to construct an electronically-controlled yacht, although the implementation of the control system was very incomplete.Orbitalforam (talk) 14:10, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Dubious
This article makes unreferenced, and rather dubious, claim that Nigel Tetley committed suicide. Tetleys' own article says:
 * "The coroner, noting there was no evidence that Tetley had deliberately taken his life, recorded an open verdict",

though that entire article is poorly referenced to one book, and has only one footnote! 220.101 talk\Contribs 14:19, 26 October 2010 (UTC))

Mental Illness
I have only seen the 2006 documentary and read the Wikipedia article on Crowhurst. I have not read the biography. I am an MD, but not a psychiatrist. I haven't seen any speculation about what mental illness Crowhurst was suffering from, aside from the mentioning that food poisioning was discounted as a possible cause.

Based on what I have seen and read, I feel certain that Crowhurst had bipolar disorder for several reasons: 1) The early loss of his father and loss of the family's business and resultant financial hardship were stressors which could have predisposed him for bipolar disorder. 2) The fact that he was an energetic entrepreneur and a talker who could convince others into backing him is consistent with at least a modest degree of mania. 3) Engaging in risk-taking is a key feature of manic behavior, which for him included starting a business, and attempting to sail around the world with minimal experience, as well as the precarious financial situation required to fund the attempt. Perhaps the most risky thing was trying to falsify the ship's log. 4) Bipolar individuals are typically creative and/or artistic, and Crowhurst's multiple inventions and literary output speak to this quality. 5) His military career apparently ended over a disciplinary issue. This suggests (albeit tenuously) that he may have had difficulty submitting to the authority of others, or been prone to bursts of anger or immature (risk-taking) behavior, which are aspects of mania and the inflated self-esteem it brings.  6) Bipolar people often have obsessions with famous people. For Crowhurst this was possibly Einstein, and maybe also the sailor who did the first solo circumnavigation. They typically have an "I can be as good as he was" attitude. 7) As it gets more severe, mania becomes indistinguishable from schizophrenia. Obsession with religion and magical or delusional thinking (evidenced from his log entries) is common. 8) His 25,000 word "stream of conciousness" written output is another classic sign. 9) While periods of depression are often a part of biopolar disorder (and one which we would associate with suicide), it seems more probable to me that he was hyper-manic at that point, so delusional that suicide seemed appropriate, rather than an act of despair.  Gpswaney (talk) 04:57, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Scans of the logbooks
This article in Yachting Monthly has some scans of the logbooks, courtesy of Pathe. Not much use for the article directly - they're primary sources - but the amateur psychologists above might love 'em. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 15:58, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Birthplace.
I met a member of his family years ago, and they said that he was born in Lahore, in what is now Pakistan. To my knowledge, the family did not contribute to the Tomalin and Hall book about the voyage, and it seems that all mentions of his birthplace being Ghaziabad are based on this book. I can't find anything on the internet about this, but wondered if anyone else has information about it. --Dmol (talk) 09:10, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Cinema adaptation and Aftermath section
Two things: I wonder if the films based upon this true and sad story have their place in the "aftermath" section when they should be in a "popular culture" section. I also think we need to add the French film "Les Quarantiemes Rugissants" (1982), which is a direct adaptation, although "gallicized", of the book "The Last Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst" by Ron Hall and Nicholas Tomalin. --WhiteEcho 06:19, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * –Yes, that's correct. The story was "updated" (set in the more recent past, but avoiding GPS!) as well as being given French central characters (played by Jacques Perrin and Julie Christie). There was also a 1988 film called "Horse Latitudes" loosely based on the story, and there have been several UK documentaries. Peter Nichols' book "A Voyage for Madmen" described the participation of the 9 race entrants. A radio play was also produced about the story, as part of a BBC "Radio Night".--Orbitalforam 16:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Added a reference and description of the 1986 Soviet movie based on the events of the Golden Globe race. Since this seems to be the earliest adaptation, I put it at the top. It's also a very decently made film, if at times liberal with the facts and with interpretations (in 1986 they didn't have the research of the incident we have now, and of course Soviet filmmaking had to make it "kosher" from an ideological POV). --Konstantin Dragomirov (talk) 11:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * An interesting addition! It might be worth pointing out that Donald Crowhurst's daughter is called Rachel (and not Miranda as in this film; cf Tomalin and Hall, the Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst). Maybe the film makers had "The Tempest" in mind. Orbitalforam (talk) 16:39, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

There's a reference to Tetley's apparent suicide here, yet the article on Nigel Tetley clearly states that he died accidentally from some form of masochistic self-inflicted torture. The coroner reported a verdict of accidental death and not suicide. sugarfish (talk) 21:17, 8 October 2015 (UTC)