The tragic story of the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race

The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a sailing race around the world held in 1968, spoke to the imagination of the whole world. A £5000 prize was offered to the winner of the race around the world via the great capes and at the start, there were nine men, and the story of one of those men is one of them was Donald Crowhurst, let us take a look at his unbelievable, but tragic story.

Who was Donald Crowhurst

Donald Crowhurst was born in British-India. His mother longed deeply for a baby girl, and for that reason, Donald was dressed as a girl until the age of seven. After the family moved back to England, they lost all their retirement savings due to a fire in the factory the family had invested in.

Crowhurst had to quit school early in his life, aged only 16, his father had died and there was no money to pay for his further education. For a short time, Crowhurst served in the army, after he left he started his own business. Although he designed a handheld device that allowed sailors to navigate with marine and aviation beacons, and he had some success in selling navigational equipment, his business, in general, was failing.

When the race was announced, he saw an opportunity to gain some publicity and promote his business. He found sponsors and took mortgages on both his home and business right before the race to finance everything, hoping that the race would provide him a solution to his financial problems. As you can tell, Crowhurst had a lot at stake.

The Race

On the final day that it was permitted, Donald Crowhurst began his journey with a boat that had not enough supplies, was not equipped for a long voyage and on top of that, he did not have a lot of experience with the type of boat, a trimaran.

In the first weeks after he left, it was clear that Crowhurst lacked the skills to sail the boat, and either he could forfeit now and face his financial situation, or continue and have a realistic chance of dying out on the ocean.

But Crowhurst had a plan, he would wait in the South Atlantic until the other boats were on their way back there, send vague and false reports of his location, and then follow the other boats when they were on their return to England. As he did not plan to win the race, he did not think they would investigate his logs in detail.

The tragic ending

The only thing Crowhurst did not foresee, was that most of his competitors had to forfeit the race. Based on his false reports, people were convinced that Crowhurst still had a good chance to win the race. The problem was, if he would win the race, they would examine his log book for sure, revealing all of his lies.

He would never make it to the end. Based on his log entries, his mental state got from bad to worse. He made his last radio transmission on June the 29th and his last log entry dates July 1st.

The boat was found on the 10th of July. Based on the state of the boat, it is believed that Crowhurst either fell or jumped overboard and drowned in the ocean.