Or, the significance of the number 243.
The book by Tomalin and Hall. The subtitle mine.
Donald Crowhurst took up the challenge laid down in the late 60s by the Sunday Times.
The challenge was to sail around the world non-stop single handed.
Donald was an inventor. He was having his boat built to his own designs and it would be something of a showcase for his electronic inventions.
Called the Teignmouth Electron, the name itself was an advert for his invention.
He was charismatic and soon the BBC were filming him.
At night Crowhurst lay in bed with his wife looking for a way to bow out without losing face. He didn’t find one.
With this knowledge there are some horrible moments in the BBC footage. The look on Donald’s face as the interview is over and he looks away, the camera still rolling for a few seconds longer than totally needed.
Underfunded, underprepared Donald set sail with most of his ingenious safety devices non-operational. Most of the wiring just ended, bare wires dangling.
Nothing very remarkable happened to Donald for a while but suddenly his odyssey was grabbing the headlines. His untried design was carving up the seas, setting 24hour distance records regularly. There was every chance this most unlikely to heroes was going to storm across the finishing line a glorious first (in time spent at sea).
The boat was found drifting empty on the 10th July.
Unfortunately Donald was inventing a good deal more than electronic gadgets. He had in fact made land earlier and would be disqualified if discovered. But for some reason rather than take this as an opportunity to give up he ploughed on. Giving up at this point would have been no disgrace, his boat was in all manner of difficulties and other competitors had found the going tough enough to have abandoned the race.
The truth was contained in his log book (he kept more than one). He was making it up as he went along, or more correctly, making up he was going along when he was in fact not.
The log writing shown an increasing breakdown and obsessions all the while faking log entries of considerable complexity.
He had over-egged the pudding though and it looked likely he was going to win, in which case the logs would be under a great deal of examination and him along with them.
Eventually the world he had created for himself alone fell apart and he threw himself overboard.
243 appears a number of times in his writing.
His best days “sailing” was 243 miles, he intended to finish the journey in 243 days. Some say he did, his last entry was 1st July, 243 days after his journey began.
The lies he tried so hard to cover up killed him, but he left behind a record of the very thing he sort to avoid.
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