Thursday, December 17, 2009

Book Review: The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst

It's an incredible story. Donald Crowhurst entered the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe race, which was the first organized race for a single handed nonstop circumnavigation. Crowhurst was an amateur sailor with very little or no blue water experience. He was smart and ambitious, but he found success elusive in his life, and would quickly jump from one failing career or project to another. He embarked on the circumnavigation unprepared with an un-seaworthy and largely untested trimaran that he had commissioned. Crowhurst realizes his mistake, possibly even before leaving, but once at sea he knows the boat won't make it through the southern oceans in one piece. He stays in the South Atlantic, planning to fake the circumnavigation. As the fleet rounds the world back to the Atlantic and starts heading North, he rejoins the race and is on pace to set the fastest time. Within a day of landfall, Crowhurst stops. His boat is found drifting, without damage, and the log books set neatly on the settee table. The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst chronicles Crowhurst's early life, and through extensive interviews with family, friends, and business partners a picture of Crowhurst develops that belies his public persona.

The authors do an amazing job deciphering and interpreting the logs that were left behind. There was a movie made in 2006 on the same topic, Deep Water, which was interesting, but failed to put all of the pieces together the way the book did.