Exciting developments on Sorry Television! After three years (!!!) of fighting the good fight solo, I’ve invited some friends to submit guest posts, so that you fine people have something to read on those weeks when I get so distracted by reality television caught up in work that I run out of time to write reviews and/or finish books. Today’s guest post comes from John Peabody, and it’s about boats. (If you knew John, you’d understand why I expected nothing less.) Also there is a person in this book named Captain Richard Box. ….Captain. Dick. Box. Enjoy!
The ocean covers 140 million square miles, 70 percent of the Earth and is made up of about 352 quintillion (352,670,000,000,000,000,000) gallons of water. In 1968, Donald Crowhurst, a businessman and amateur sailor loaded with a heavy dose of British can-do spirit and an oversize ego, set out to take this on by himself. He wanted to be the first person to sail solo around the world without stopping. Spoiler alert: He didn’t make it.
Long before the invention of GPS. or modern safety equipment, Crowhurst joined the Golden Globe Race (not, unfortunately, a footrace among persons vying for Golden Globes.) The first of it’s kind, the race entailed master sailors leaving from England and making it back in roughly 220 days, if at all. Success would mean a lot of time alone at sea and failure meant probably dying there (or I suppose some kind of 60’s-era Cast Away situation).
Crowhurst’s story is masterfully told in The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, a work that inspired multiple plays and the documentary Deep Ocean. Rumors of a feature film starring Colin Firth and Kate Winslet are now circulating online.
While under-qualified for his journey, Crowhurst was seriously committed — stubbornly so. Even while construction of his boat the Teignmouth Electron (fantastic name) went over budget, missed deadlines and revealed unsafe design flaws, he only grew more passionate about his trip. Only for a moment did Crowhurst consider not leaving his wife and family behind (this, btw, is a conversation I like imagining).
Continue reading “When planning to sail around the world, don’t”
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