Teignmouth Electron

There are people whose life stories take on for us a special significance. A biography, an obituary can be read, considered and then discarded; the subject's being having no impact on our own. But when that person takes hold of us in some way, moves us, threatens to change us, then the impact is far more significant; rather, it is transcendental and, by turns, often unnerving.

Donald Crowhurst was born in British India in 1932, and was acquainted through his parents with not only a declining Empire, but the declining fortunes of those who had drawn from it. He saw himself as significant, but led a life which was so only to himself and those closest to him, until announcing his participation in the inaugural 'Golden Globe' Round the World Yacht Race. This was to be his Everest, his Moon landing, his vindication.

His story well documented, Crowhurst can easily be dismissed as cowardly cheat, at best a sad victim of conscience without outlet. That his actions played at least some part in driving a fellow competitor to capsize, obsession and ultimately suicide adds another layer to the tragedy, and perhaps further weight to the scales of judgement. But the same obsessional, introspective, significance-seeking characteristics which so drove him onto and into the sea drive others to consider him in a different light. His expressed desire pre-race to 'impart a great message' to the world is one the current Internet Age shows us to be shared by many, who resent the pre-determined role assigned to them by 'society' and long that their personal uniqueness be recognised on a wider scale. That so many in our world today seem happy to accept the scraps offered to them by a media-driven consumerism and consumer generator is particularly galling, to those who would view the ocean as canvas upon which to paint their masterpiece were the finish line not, like Crowhurst's, a final judgement they could not, or indeed cannot, face.

That Crowhurst knew not where to turn in order for his conscience to be cleansed is, to this Christian reader, the most poignant part of the story. As moving as the images of a rotting Teignmouth Electron are, they say little other than to emphasise how uncomfortable humankind is with those who play neither the part of hero nor villain, but rather that of window into the areas of the human soul that many would prefer not to recognise, or even acknowldege.

The Race was ultimately 'won' by the now-lauded Robin Knox-Johnston, in his heralded vessel Suahli which now fittingly rests in the National Maritime Museum. It also drew several other men whose lives would come in some way to be defined by the race, or rather whose characters' would further mythologise it and provoke horror, pity, fascination and admiration from those who would come to be touched by them.



This post was inspired by Peter Nichols' wonderful A Voyage For Madmen, which I would recommend wholeheartedly. Crowhurst's voyage has also inspired films, artworks and even an opera, Ravenshead.