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Donald Crowhurst Faked a Race Around the World · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you for tuning in today's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Today's episode has one of my favorite descriptions of someone's profession. Spoiler, Hi,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben, Hey Ben, I'm no. Are you talking about
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Donald Crowhurst being British? I am talking about Donald Crowhurst
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: being being British. He is an iconic person similar of
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: course in some ways, at least just through their iconicism.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: To our super producer, Casey Pegram, You're right, Noal, Donald
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Crowhurst the protagonist of one of the weirdest stories of
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: his day back in the late sixties. Here's the description
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  Speaker 1: I like about him. So he is, as he said, British. Right.
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  Speaker 1: He was in uh in The Guardian, which is itself
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  Speaker 1: a British publication, and uh, like many British publications, it's
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  Speaker 1: famous for it's it's kind of subdued snarkiness. They some
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Donald Crewehurst up this way. They say he is occasionally
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  Speaker 1: described as a businessman. Okay, I was talking about the
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  Speaker 1: second part of that quote, but that is the more stark.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: But you're right, it's so subdued that it almost takes
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: you a double take. To kind of figure out which
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  Speaker 1: part is a diss The second part, UH struck me
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  Speaker 1: as a bit of a of a low key dis
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  Speaker 1: as well. Um Donald Crowhurst was British but really an
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  Speaker 1: orphan of the Empire. Uh. And this notion came from
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  Speaker 1: the fact that he was actually born in India when
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  Speaker 1: it was under the rule of the British raj in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two, and his father was a superintendent of
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  Speaker 1: the railways. UM. So he kind of grew up in
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  Speaker 1: that very interesting and very problematic time in British history
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  Speaker 1: in terms of the way people who were born in
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: India were treated, um natives, you know, Indian people, um.
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  Speaker 1: And also the bureaucracy and the kind of rapaciousness of
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  Speaker 1: the way the British Empire treated India as a surrogate
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  Speaker 1: and as basically just another place to you know, strip
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  Speaker 1: riches from um come hell or high water. It was
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  Speaker 1: considered the crown of the British Empire, and terrible, terrible
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: things occurred there that are are the UK's fault. Before
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: we go on, I gotta mention, I don't know, uh,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: casey Nola, I don't know whether this ever happens to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: you or you listening along with this ridiculous historians. But yeah,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you get songs stuck in your head sometimes, right, Oh yeah, yeah,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And I think you have one stuck in your head
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: right now. Huh, I'll give We'll pass it on to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the crowd getting jiggy with it by Will Smith. Let
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: us know what that sample is. We think it's probably
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: a Stevie Wonder song. And uh. Sometimes in addition to songs,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I get words or phrases stuck in my head. And
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: bungalow has been in my head for for a lot
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: of this week. Interesting, you know, I've had a very
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: similar sort of you could say, sister words stuck in
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: my head for the last few weeks. Chalet, okay, I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: like it. So Bungalow, oddly enough comes from Hindi and
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  Speaker 1: it comes it's a type of cottage that was built
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  Speaker 1: for early European settlers slash invaders and Bengal India. So
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: did Crowhurst live in a bungalow? I don't know. I'm
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: just looking for excuses to say bungalow on air. Anyway, Bungalow, Bungalow, bungalow.
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  Speaker 1: Back to Crowhurst, So India declared a dependence and the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: family was able to take some of what they had
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: saved and scrimped together because they weren't wealthy. They weren't, No,
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  Speaker 1: they weren't. Again he was. He was a bureaucrat, but
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  Speaker 1: not like a high level one, right, Um. He was
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  Speaker 1: a superintendent, which would essentially be like a supervisor, like
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a mid management kind of position, wouldn't you say them? Yeah,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: maybe a little higher than that, but still in the
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  Speaker 1: grand scheme of British bureaucracy, but a cog in the machine.
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  Speaker 1: They weren't nobility, and usually to have a very high
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  Speaker 1: level position in the way that that society functioned, you
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: would have been nobility one thousand percent. So they took
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  Speaker 1: those meager savings and they hooked it back to England. Um.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: But they were not greeted with with the particularly warm
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  Speaker 1: welcome when they got to Reading, in particular in the
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: suburbs of Reading. We have to remember that London is
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: a sprawling metropolis um with all kinds of suburban areas
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  Speaker 1: and different townships and and villages and entire cities within
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: cities essentially, so they had kind of a route awakening. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: They were they were expecting to home to some kind
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  Speaker 1: of more peaceful, idyllic existence in in there what would
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  Speaker 1: essentially be considered their home country. But the climate was terrible.
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  Speaker 1: Um money was was very hard to come by, and
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  Speaker 1: uh Crowhurst, the father, UH senior pretty quickly just dropped
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  Speaker 1: dead of a heart attack. Really almost like a Torments
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: of the Damned kind of situation for young Crowhurst. And
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a huge change for his father, you know,
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  Speaker 1: to move from India to this completely different place, which
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  Speaker 1: may have seemed unfamiliar or strange because he had spent
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  Speaker 1: so much time in India. So it turns out that
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Charles Dickens, while he wrote fiction, was based in it
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: on some fairly common situations in the United Kingdom. In Britain,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: uh Donald had to leave school early, just like a
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Dickens character and get a job, so he became an
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: apprentice at the r a E. The Royal Aircraft Establishment.
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  Speaker 1: He was broke, he was ambitious. He was like eminem
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of eight Mile or like Alexander Hamilton's
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: in the beginning to Hamilton's he said, I'm gonna make
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  Speaker 1: something to myself. I'm gonna do better. I will not
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  Speaker 1: accept this life that has been thrust upon me and
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  Speaker 1: so he uh he gets a commission for Royal Air Force,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: goes to the army. But then he goes out and
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  Speaker 1: the parties, I imagine, some drinks were had and uh
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  Speaker 1: he steals a car and he asked to resign. I
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: mean he had to get home somehow. Yeah, that's true. Um.
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  Speaker 1: He he got he got pinched for it and had
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to appear before the magistrates there in reading. Um. And
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: he you know, it didn't totally derail his life, but
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it certainly was was a black mark on his record. Um,
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  Speaker 1: and his carefree days were were to be put behind him. Um.
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  Speaker 1: He did grow up a bit. Uh. He married um
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  Speaker 1: shortly after, a lovely lay by the name of Claire Leary,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: who was a Protestant Um from kill Arnie, uh in Ireland.
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  Speaker 1: She was an Anglo Irish Protestant Um. And uh that
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  Speaker 1: is where he actually started his own business, a small
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: computer business. What's that the computers? Electron utilization limited utilization.
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  Speaker 1: Excuse me, but it's spelled were wouldn't there be a Z?
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: It spelled the British way. Ah, there you go, Ben,
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  Speaker 1: there you go, Electron Utilization Ltd. And Uh. He basically
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  Speaker 1: invented a computer. He invented a lot of stuff right,
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  Speaker 1: but because he was he was one of those guys
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  Speaker 1: who's always messing around with something in his workshop. He
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  Speaker 1: created a radio direction finding device called the Navigator with
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  Speaker 1: a C and now it's according to the Guardian, it's
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  Speaker 1: pretty common for a lot of weekend sailors. And he
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  Speaker 1: thought this would make his fortune and that he and
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  Speaker 1: Claire would you know, be living the high life, never
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  Speaker 1: have to work again. But that money didn't come as
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  Speaker 1: as quickly as he had hoped, and so it came
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  Speaker 1: to pass that when the Sunday Times announced their Golden
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  Speaker 1: Globe race with five thousand pounds as the as the prize,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that's about sixty five thousand pounds today. Uh. He thought Crowhurst,
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  Speaker 1: that is, thought this would be the perfect way to
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  Speaker 1: stave off bankruptcy, at least until the sales of his
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Navigator took off. I think his first problems with the name,
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  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna hear me every time I hear you
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: say navigator, I want to correct you and say it's
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: pronounced navigator, Ben or whomever. I feel like people pronouncing
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  Speaker 1: it this way would be would be you know, immediately
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  Speaker 1: not taken seriously. Uh, but it was a clever invention
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  Speaker 1: and very ahead of its time. But perhaps the need
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  Speaker 1: wasn't there, or the demand wasn't quite there, or the
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  Speaker 1: marketing was lacking. Right. So the Golden Globe Race, which
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  Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the Golden Globe Awards so
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  Speaker 1: far as we know, does have does have some backgrounds.
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  Speaker 1: So it's around the world yacht race. And in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty seven, the year before this, this race began, a
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  Speaker 1: guy named Francis Chichester. What do you think, No, Chichester,
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  Speaker 1: chi Chi Chichester, Chichester, Chichester, che Chester. Uh, this guy, Francis,
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  Speaker 1: will call on Francis. He had sailed his boat problematically
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  Speaker 1: named the Gypsy Moth with an eye and DEPLOYA gypsy
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: moth is a real is a real moth? Yeah? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: well it is. It spelled g I P S Y.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, we're not supposed to say gypsy anyway. Well,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: but it's I think it's a species of moth. Though, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I believe you. I just don't think you know, there's
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: probably a better name for it at this point. Oh
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and it's it. Hold on. Now, the main thing that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: comes up is the name of that ship and spell
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: with the g I uh, the the you're right, then
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  Speaker 1: you're right. The actual moth, which is a species of
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  Speaker 1: Lymntrea dis bar is pronounced or spelled g y p
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  Speaker 1: s y. So when you spell it with that I,
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  Speaker 1: that makes it not nice. Well it's not nice either way. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but you know, if at least at least one of
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  Speaker 1: them is a science Oh yeah, yeah, I see what
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  Speaker 1: you're saying. But so when this guy Francis, when he
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  Speaker 1: has sailed into ployment, there's a media frenzy. Everybody welcomes him,
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  Speaker 1: the Queen knights him. Uh. And the idea is that,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you know, think about you know, late nineteen sixties. The
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  Speaker 1: idea is that sure, people cross the pond in the
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  Speaker 1: US might be exploring space, but here on Earth, the
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  Speaker 1: British are still ruling the waves, empire or no. And
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: so of course the media says like, okay, we have this,
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  Speaker 1: we can understand when there's a trend here, there's an opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: And Francis's book about his journey the Lonely Sea and
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  Speaker 1: the Sky becomes a best seller. And so it comes
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  Speaker 1: to pass that during spring of n the Sunday Times
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  Speaker 1: launches their own challenge in direct competition with the observers
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  Speaker 1: existing Transatlantic race and the Sunday Times challenge is called
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  Speaker 1: the Golden Globe around the World Yacht Race. So this
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  Speaker 1: was supposed to be a place with a race with
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  Speaker 1: even higher stakes. Right, because Francis had kind of broken
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  Speaker 1: his journey down in Australia and around the world, most
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: people believed that a solo voter, a solo yachtsman, could
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: not deal with all the problems you would face sailing
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  Speaker 1: by yourself for months and months on anti. That's right,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you need a team. There's a lot of mechanics that
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: go into sailing, right. You gotta tie the jib and
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: hoist the the main and and and all. Then the rudder.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Someone has to man the rudder. You know who who's
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: demand the rudder if you're if you're tying the jib
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: or the boom or what have you. I'm making up
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: all these terms, but uh, it really does. I can
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: say for a fact that it is very helpful to
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: have two individuals at the very least because there are
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: separate locations for different very key parts of the sailing situation,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: especially if it's a yacht, which I think by the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: very nature, would be larger than just a small sailboat, right,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's sort of the the idea here. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's a tough proposition, you know. However, again, the
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: national mood was so bullish on this that nine sailors
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  Speaker 1: actually did step forward to compete for these prizes. The
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  Speaker 1: deal was this, they could set off any time before
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: October thirty one and the first person home would take
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  Speaker 1: the honors a golden globe, while the fastest one would
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  Speaker 1: also get five thousand pounds. So the competitors are are
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: all pretty much except for Donald, they're all pretty much
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  Speaker 1: well known in the in the yachting world. There are
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: people like Transatlantic Oarsbon Chay Blythe and John Ridgeway, and
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: there's some veteran French sailors. There's next Merchant Seaman. It's
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: a well known Italian sailor to former naval officers. And then,
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  Speaker 1: of course one of the latest entries was this uh
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  Speaker 1: little known electronics engineer from the West Country, Donald Crowhurst. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I mean he wasn't really seen as a contender as
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: whomever originally said that line in a film at some
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: point in history about boxing might have said, Um, he was,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: you know, this kind of young, upstart, very driven, something
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: seen as something of a romantic in search of making
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: his name. Uh and perhaps his nut because he, as
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: as you know, was really out out for for cash.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: He needed to save himself from bankruptcy because of his
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: ill fated attempts at the Navigator, right the na remember
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: that movie Flight of the Navigator. No, I remember Fly
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: of the Navigator. That's how it's pronounced. I'm sorry, I'm
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: getting confused. Uh. Crowhurst had to kind of con his
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: way into into the into the competition. He was able
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: to persuade a local dealer, a caravan dealer, which I
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: believe is sort of like like it's like an RV,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: that's right. Um. He was able to convince him to
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: sponsor his entry, a guy by the name of Stanley Best,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: who also happened to be quite wealthy. Um, and he
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: commissioned a boat for him. A Norfolk boatyard built him
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a Trymran, not to be confused with a catamaran, which
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: is more than try What his cat like? Four? What's
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the catamaran? Is that the one with the two two
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: pieces like it's like two boats side by side connected
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: in the middle with like a platform. I think that's
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: what I think. So like, uh, like the is that what? Yeah,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: it's kind of like what Kevin Costner had. No, No,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: catamaran is too. Oh, trimer And is three and a
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: trimaran is three. And I'm trying to think of, you know,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: my favorite part of water World, the Kevin costume vehicle,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: which I know casey Adores is uh is the trimar
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Ran boat that the the unnamed mutant drives. It just
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: looks so awesome. I want to live on the sea
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in a trimaran. So once again, though, this really does
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: show I mean this, this does elevate it beyond just
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a sailing boat. Right. This is uh, you know you
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you can see these trimar Rans now associated with very
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: luxurious yachts. They would be up high off the water,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: floating on these three um kind of pillars, these three
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: sort of canoe things with struts, and then the the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: deck of the yacht where you would you know, son
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and you know, do whatever the wealthy do on yachts.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Um would be up high, but this would have been
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: low to the water, right with three and then the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: center one would have been where the deck was and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: where you have like a hole and stuff. Yeah, these
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: things can pick up a lot of speed. Totally. Yeah.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The As a matter of fact, as recently as December
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: of nineteen there was a trimer and out attempting to
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: break the world record for circumnavigation of the Earth. Here's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: where crowhurst story begins to take a little bit more
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: of a tragic turn. So he can hear the clock
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: ticking TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, and he needs to seriously put
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: this plan in action. He needs the rubber to hit
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the road, or should I say, the trimer and to
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: hit the water. He hires a publicist, a guy named
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Rodney Hollworth. Ulworth was what you would call in the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: world of writing a hack. It was a former crime
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: reporter and he fed Crowhurst in his fantasy life, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: he said, Donald, you know you're you're gonna win your
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: dark horse. The public loves you. You've got to take
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: this seriously, and he gets uh. He kind of persuade,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: or not not so much, persuades him to take certain actions,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: but makes his dream of winning the race increasingly feverish.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: The guy gets race fever. He mortgages his house and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: his business and This is a huge gamble because again
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: remember if you're a competitor, you have to be on
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the water sailing around the planet before the thirty one
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: of October. Some people have already left. This guy is
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a boat that he's never tried out. He's not super prepared.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: He doesn't have the equipment, he doesn't have the capital,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: he doesn't have the background. And you know what if
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: he loses, he also probably doesn't have a house. At
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: least he has his boat. You know, you can always
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: just live live on that and on the on the deck. Um,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: but he probably get pretty bad sunburn. I heard he
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: was kind of pasty. Uh so yeah, I mean he
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: did test sit out a little bit what's called a
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: sea trial. Um. He took it from East Anglia to
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: uh the West County um of Ireland, where his wife
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: was from. And um he called it the the Teignmouth
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Electron and it really um pooped the bed as as
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: as as were wont to say on the show, because
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: as Ben says, we're a family show. Um, but everybody
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: poops and and and his boat absolutely did that thing.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It underperformed. It did not deliver what should have been
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a three day trip, took two weeks. It was a
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: real embarrassment and a real setback for for our boy Crowhurst,
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: kind of like Gilligan's Island, right three Uh, a three
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: hour tour turned into a whole lovely you know, legacy
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: of television, which I'm fine with. Yeah, yeah, Now because
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: of this, because of this delay, he's got no time
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to get all the provisions he needs for his vessel,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and he also has no time to give it all
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: the proper equipment he needs. But he's up against the
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: deadline again. TikTok, TikTok, TikTok. So he says, Look, I've
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: got to set sail with what I have now, or
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I have to withdraw myself from the race, which means
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I'll embarrass myself publicly, and there's no question about it.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I will be bank erupt. I will be as broken
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: as a joke without a punchline. So, in the afternoon
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of October thirty one, the very last day, the last
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: possible moment he can leave, uh, he sets out and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: he has a false start at the beginning. Uh. He
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: whispers famously to his son, look after your mother, And
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: no one could anticipate how strange his voyage would become
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Now now we have to we have to set the
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: scene here too, right before we go on the race.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: It's very important to note that although Donald Crewehurst may
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: have been under prepared, this was still a very difficult race.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: There were very few things you could do to prepare
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: for this in such a way that it was going
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: to be safe. It is the nineteen sixties. There's no GPS,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: there's no satellites. You could maybe have a worse code
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: transmitter or something. You have to use a sextant when
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: you're out in the open water. This is tough, you
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, even if you're those very well
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: prepared veteran sailors the other eight guys. Yeah, I mean
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it was it was super old school because that's just
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: what the school was, um. And and really your best
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: bet was going to be to navigate using the stars
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: and using those Sexton calculations. Here's the thing, Um, Donald
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: never was really a contender in this race at all.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Like he just he wasn't competing. He never reached the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Southern Ocean. Um. He had problems from the get go,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and he just kept falling further and further behind UM
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and he had to you make a real decision. It
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: was a real kind of come to Jesus moment where
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: he had to decide to continue on and likely perish
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: or go on back home, um and face financial ruin,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: societal humiliation, absolute outcast type status. UM. Because like we said,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: he had he banked everything on this race. We had
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: we had locked all of his wealth of any kind
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: into this race. Or right, there's a third way that
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: he comes up with, right, Yeah, I mean he was
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: sort of, by his very nature, kind of a fabulous Uh.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: He was one who was not unused to big upping
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: himself and being something of a carnival barking self promoter.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: And he took some of those skills to the nth
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: degree um by fabricating reports uh and in an entire
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: narrative behind this grand venture that he was going to
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: set out. Uh. He pretended to circumnavigate the globe, which
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: was a big deal to be able to claim that
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: um in those days, still still not as difficult as
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: actually circumnavigating the globe, but it takes it does take
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: some effort. This is where you know, when we're doing
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: research for this, this is when uh, he started to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: remind me of the main character and uncut gems. It's
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: just a escalating stakes, increasingly desperate, very very few winds,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: but just a way to delay the losses exactly, delaying
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the inevitability. Lies, we get lies, and it all kind
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: of spider webs out of control eventually. But yeah, you know,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: if you're a guy like this who's got I don't know,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: let's call it a positive attitude for lack of a
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: better term, Um, you just kind of keep pushing forward
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and in the hopes that if you don't pay attention
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to what's coming your way, maybe it'll never happen in
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: terms of the negative stuff, right, And so his his
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: plan is to his plan is incredibly unethical. He's going
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to fake the race and he's going to lap these people.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: He's fallen far enough behind from what he can tell
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: that it's not like these folks can see each other
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: every day, Right, So he says he's going to rejoin
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the race when they're on the way back, and he thinks,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be the first to arrive my
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: not record the fastest time, but I am going to
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: save face and ultimately I'll be able to save my house.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Ben really quickly was the purpose of this race to
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: circumnavigate the globe? Was that the idea? Yes, okay, I'm
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: sorry I missed that part and I acted like he
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: was kind of going rogue and deciding to do his
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: own thing. But I see now that that was a
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: big part of the race. So we've got Robin Knox Johnson,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: who was a favorite. Uh he came in first, and he,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: you know, was the first to circumnavigate the world all
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: by himself. Then we had Nigel Tentley who came in
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: a close second. Uh, or looked like he was that's right,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: but but then he uh he would have potentially claimed
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the prize for the fastest time. But is she sank
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: yep suddenly out of the clear blue sky, and then
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: and then and then was was was pulled from the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: watery jaws of death. And the rate of attrition in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: this race was pretty high. Crowhurst is the only other
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: competitor left in the race, and it looks like because
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of that he was going to get the prize for
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: being the fastest. So we claimed the Golden Globe and
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: become a national hero. I love this next line in
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: this Guardian article that were following year um the notion
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that so much of this was on the honor system, right,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: because the lack of technology. Because of the lack of
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: they weren't like follow vehicles or helicopters to prove that
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: these uh, these men had had actually completed what they
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: said they were going to. It was all paper log
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: books and journal entries and uh, you know, recording those
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: sex stant measurements in the right right and and and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and his would would really start to be uh given
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: a pretty close eye after after this happened, because he
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: was such an underdog and such a kind of upstart entry.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: But here's here's the twist. You see, they did find
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the log books, they did find the vessel, but they
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: never found Donald Crowhurst. He never made at home. The
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Tagnmouth electron was found drifting abandoned Mary Celeste style. People
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: found the books that charted his actual voyage, along with
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the records uh that he was cooking up the books
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that he had cooked showing he made false claims about
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the speed of his vessel and that he had worked
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: up a fake navigational account. There are also heroine writings
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: that show us his psychological state. The last page as
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: the most ominous, comes from July one and It had
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the following words, I have no knee to prolong the game.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: It is finished. It is finished, all caps. It is
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the mercy that is kind of spooky had been that
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: last page had been torn out, although his son Simon
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Crowhurst has this page. He thinks that the captain of
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the ship that found the electron ripped it because he
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: thought it would be unbearable for the family to see,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: which makes sense. So he never came. He never got
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: his accolades that he was seeking. He uh, technically would
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: have because of all of the bad things that befell
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the other you know, entries in the race. But he
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: did not cross the finish line. He just he was
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: lost to see essentially, right, Yeah, he disappeared. And that's
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the thing that you know, they've never found a body,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: never found any proof of what happened to him. Uh
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: when he they were found right, so we said his
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: last his last written account was July one. On July
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: t just nine days later, the Royal mail vessel the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Picardy finds the boat. It's um It's in the mid Atlantic,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: near the Caribbean. It's like a ghost ship, exactly like
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a ghost ship. It was cluttered, there were dirty dishes,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the bedlining was filthy, but there was no sign of Crowhurst.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: And because he disappeared, because there was no closure, because
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: this was a mystery, he became famous worldwide. And what
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: happens when people become famous across the world for disappearing,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: They're seeing everywhere. Elvis is still getting sighted for Pete's sake.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Totally yeah. And so the captain of the Picardy, which
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: was a royal mail ship, um hoisted uh Crowhurst's electron
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: trimaran onto his ship and took it along with them.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And that's when he started to read the entries in
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: those those three different log books himself. And this is
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you know, everyone loves a good mystery, Everyone loves a
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: good disappearance. In the same way we talked about the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Mary Celeste, that famous ghost ship that was found adrift,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and all of the different theories as to what happened
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: to the the crew of the Mary Celeste. Uh, this
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: similarly got the public's imagination going running wild. This gets
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: us to a painful, tragic point because of course there
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: is a search mission called right and people are attempting
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to find some sign of Donald Crowhurst. His children are
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: puzzled because pretty soon a few days after they find
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the stuff about the log books, the searches called off
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and they think, why is no one? Why is no
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: one looking for our father? And the reason they stopped
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the searchers because they solved the mystery. It was all
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: there in those log books. It was clear as day
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: he had tried to perpetrate this hoax and failed, and
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and and therefore probably just you know, it wasn't so
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: much an issue as to what did he fall overboard?
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: What happened? You know, they know that he was up
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: to no good, and therefore I guess it became less
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of a priority. Or what do you think them? I
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: think they they figure the most likely cause was suicide,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: but they didn't they didn't find the body. And this
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: is where this is where the Sunday Times does something
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: that's um Honestly, I've used the word before in this episode.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: But the Sunday Times themselves become a little unethical because
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: they want to extract maximum publicity from this story. So
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: they send a reporter named Nicholas Tomlin to interview the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: captain of that Royal mail vessel to Picardy and to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: inspect the electron and to collect whatever he can find
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: on board, and instead of getting some thrilling front page
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: story of adventure on the high seas, they get this
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: immensely tragic, heartbreaking tale of an amateur yachts and who
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: had fooled Fleet Street completely. But then Tomlin, being an
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: expert reporter, turns this into a sensational tell all scoop
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and they started unraveling the mystery of the log books
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and published a book called The Strange Last Voyage of
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Donald Crowhurst, which today is considered the most comprehensive account
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: of this tale. But it's by far not the only
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: work of literature or film uh that has been mentioned.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It's in popular culture now. Yeah, and I think a
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Studio Canal is as a favorite production house of I
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: think Casey's as as well as as mine and Ben's
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: um responsible for a lot of David Lynch's best work
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: and a lot of French films. Um. They have put
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: out two in two thousand eighteen. I haven't seen either
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: of these and didn't see a lot of publicity about them.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: But one of them starts Colin Firth and it's called
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: The Mercy, and the other one is called Crowhurst and
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: stars Justin Salinger, who I'm not familiar with, but very
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: interested in seeing either of these because it really is
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: a pretty harrowing story. It combines a lot of interesting
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: things that we we talked about on the show, from
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: kind of just blind opportunism to just sort of lack
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: of self awareness to you know, adventure and fraud. It's
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: that says a recipe for a good story. So I'm
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: definitely interested in checking out those two films from Studio Canal.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing, personally, I don't know whether I
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: will check those out. I'm conflicted because the family doesn't
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: want the story told and at this in in this
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: specific instance, I don't know if I would. I don't
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: know how on board it would be, because they change
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: details about the studio has changed details about something very
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: personal for this family. They even cut one of the
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: kids out of the story. In the film, there are
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: three Crowhurst children instead of four. They cut one of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the brothers. Um. I know, you have to make changes
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: when you adapt stuff into action, but that's that's a
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: problem that does seem a little agreed to s been.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I'm with you on that. I'm just I do like
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Colin Firth and the still that I see from this
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: first one the mercy seems pretty interesting. Hopefully one of
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: them or the other did a better job at sticking
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: to the facts. But I guess it's true too that
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: we don't know all of the facts because what we
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: have is sort of a forged log book, um, and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: it's sort of tough to know exactly what happened. And
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: this brings us to the end of today's tail, but
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: not the end of our show. Donald Crowhurst is one
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of many, many, many adventurers who have sailed across the
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: world off the edges of the proverbial or figurative map.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: We want to hear your stories of other other adventurers
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: or other mysterious disappearances. One that's a little more conspiratorial
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: is that of Lord lucan uh the the aristocrat who
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: likely committed homicide and then escape to live in obscurity.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: He got away. I don't know about this one, man.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about it with you and finding out some
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: stuff myself in the meantime. If you want to find
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: out a little bit more about us, you can check
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: our show out on all the social media as we
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: are ridiculous history on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. You can
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: check out our Facebook group the ridiculous historian, just by
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: going and answering a very simple questions naming any of
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the members of the show team here, including the folks
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that we think in the credits h including any reference
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: to anything related to the show, or just give us
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: a good old chuckle with some kind of history related
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: pun or otherwise. You can also find us as individual
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: human people on social media. I am on Instagram exclusively
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: at how Now Noel Brown. You can contact me a
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: variety of ways. My name is Ben Bullen. Always loved
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: to hear from you. You can say my name three
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: times in a mirror in the dark, or you can
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: find me on Instagram where I'm at ben Bowland. Where
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: you can find me on Twitter where I'm at ben Bowland.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Hs W, thanks as always the super producer Casey Pagram,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks to our great composer Alex Williams, and of course
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: our top notch research associate Gabe. Thanks to Christopher aciotis
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: here as always in spirit Jonathan Strickland, who now exists
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in two forms. He's the quister first and foremost in
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: my mind, but I still have to listen to these episodes.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: But he's also been a lovely stand in guest host
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: for the show, um as his non evil, non bizarro
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: world self, which I can also appreciate. Oh yeah, good note.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: On night Soil asked people to name the best slash
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: worst songs to play when you're in the restroom in
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a delicate position you don't want people to hear you.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: So thanks to everybody a ridiculous historians he's written in
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: with their uh, sometimes wonderful and sometimes just frankly disturbing
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: suggestions and has always been thanks to you for being
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: a pal and a confidant back at you. We'll see
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: you next time Fox. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.