Teignmouth Electron

580:, a smaller sister island about 160 km to the east of Grand Cayman. The boat remained in service as a diving boat until 1983, when it hit bottom and sustained minor damage. To repair the damage the boat was hauled out onto the beach for repairs. Unfortunately while being lifted with a crane it dropped and sustained further damage to the hull. Aware of the boat's history, McDermot had eventual intentions to repair and even restore her closer to Crowhurst's original design, and commenced by removing the huge cabin and began constructing a smaller one; during the start of the restoration, he came across a supply of Crowhurst's emergency rations, secreted in a sealed compartment on the underside of the arm between the main hull and port float (three more such compartments remained unopened). Unfortunately, due to the attention required by other aspects of his business, the full restoration did not materialise; the vessel was subsequently damaged by 351:

seated under the cockpit where it would be at risk of continuous exposure to water in rough weather. The galley consisted of a small burner, a pot and sink with freshwater supplied from eight Plysu containers holding part of his water supply which were connected to four large fixed water tanks, mounted inside the port and starboard side floats. The typical “Victress” cabin also featured built-in cabinetry; Crowhurst allowed a few units of shelving in the galley, but replaced most of it with lightweight Tupperware plastic containers for storing food, electronic components and a second-hand Bell and Howell 16 mm camera and Uher tape recorder that had been provided by the BBC for documenting the journey. Crowhurst brought aboard only five books:

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failure, one that could be mended with an additional try at the Golden Globe in the future. On 16 November, with his generator finally repaired, he sent off a press report to his press coordinator Rodney Hallworth, stating that he was “going towards Madeira” even though he was less than 200 miles from his last position which had been recorded as “heading Azores”. However, Crowhurst's logs prove to be fairly correct in providing location up to 1 December. It is on Friday, 6 December that he begins to actively construct a false navigational record, giving himself up to 243 miles per day runs in a communication to Hallworth on the 10th. In some cases, his fabricated mileage is almost triple his actual achieved distance.

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remains, wrote in 2007 that the boat "stands in relation to a desperate belief in something bigger than any of us individually. We have these feelings that are embedded deep inside our coding as people, to hope and dream and aspire to great, impossible things. But these dreams, in there hugeness have the potential to unravel us. They move us to action, but in their grandiose scale become impossible to understand; they seduce us but have the possibility finish us. For me the boat lives on as a relic, or monument to this idea."

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However, it cannot right itself if capsized like a mono-hulled ship would be able to. Crowhurst, anxious about the rough waters of the Roaring Forties and Cape Horn, had plans to install a buoyancy bag on the mainmast. This bag would inflate when the main computer on board sensed the boat was tipping. In theory, this would keep the boat at a rightable 90-degree angle. However, due to severe time and capital constraints, the main computer was never installed in the ship.

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result in loss of control of the craft while Crowhurst was not at the helm. His logline, which judged distance travelled, was also caught on the boat's rudder and the rotator jammed. His Racal radio receiver also did not transmit, a problem Crowhurst struggled with for four days before realizing it had just been a blown fuse. On 5 November, he discovered that the port bow float and tack were taking on water, and the whole compartment had been flooded up to the deck.

27: 294:-inch marine ply were used instead of the typical single layer. The double layering allowed for staggering the joints to alleviate any high-stress points that could buckle under the extreme expansion and compression they would face in the open ocean. The design included four reinforced crossarms with three—or in the case of the forward crossarm, four—vertical runs of plywood spanning the entire 465:, Crowhurst documented his final confession, ending with “It is finished—it is finished IT IS THE MERCY” at 11:20 and 40 seconds. He wrote “It has been a good game that must be ended at the // I will play this game when I choose I will resign the game // There is no reason for harmful”. It is presumed that shortly after this, Crowhurst, his chronometer, and falsified logbook all went overboard while the 347:

chart table with a vise mounted to it. On the port side mid-stay, was a small galley (kitchen) with a stainless sink basin and small faucet with water supplied by an internally mounted water tank. Wood cabinets were above the sink and cooking burner. Aft was the small single berth. Overall, the living quarters were considerably smaller than those of Crowhurst's competition.

124: 253:-class trimaran. However, significant structural and aesthetic deviations from the original designs were made at Crowhurst's request, in order to make the ship more suitable for the long journey through rough seas. Due to the significantly short window in which the boat was constructed, Crowhurst chose to have the hulls fabricated at Cox Marine Ltd. in 444:

months, Crowhurst reached a point in his calculations where his true position could coincide with his fake position in the race, and at this point could safely radio the race organizers. Here, Crowhurst was informed that most of the other sailors had either dropped out of the race or that their boats had fallen apart mid-course, leaving the

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Francis also made a number of changes with the purpose of correcting and smoothing the erratic sailing pattern that Crowhurst experienced. He removed the daggerboards on the starboard and port side floats. He constructed a new keel on the main hull: twelve feet long, four inches wide, with a six-inch

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Shortly after midnight on 21 May, Lieutenant-Commander Nigel Tetley, the only other competitor still in competition with Crowhurst, watched as his “Victress” trimaran sank while awaiting rescue on his rubber life-raft 1,200 miles from England. After providing false readings to the race organizers for

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Upon starting the race the boat immediately experienced problems. Three days into the journey, the Hasler self-steering gear shed two screws, which led Crowhurst to discover that he had no spare screws or bolts aboard the craft. He salvaged screws off of non-necessary gear but any more shedding would

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For communication, Crowhurst had a Marconi Kestrel radio-telephone, a Racal RA 6217 communications receiver, a Shannon Mar 3 transmitter/receiver, headsets, Morse keys, switch panels, and gross amounts of radio spares. Powering the electronics on the boat was an Onan petrol-driven generator that was

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and were supplied by International Yacht Equipment Ltd. Extra bulkheads were also added—four each on the starboard and port side floats and three in the centre hull. This translated to a deck design with an unusual amount of hatches. Additionally, these hatches were inadequately sealed due to a

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What remains of the boat has exerted a fascination and poignancy for viewers and a small number of visitors over the years, on account of its association with the initial optimism and eventual tragic demise of its designer and original sailor, Donald Crowhurst. McKean, who is the latest owner of the

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in position to not just finish, but actually, win the race. It is believed that Crowhurst had up to this point anticipated finishing the race, but not to win it, thus avoiding the scrutiny that would likely occur for the winner. Upon hearing the news about Tetley, Crowhurst's psychology changed more

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s sail configuration consisted of No. 1 mainsail, No. 1 mizzen sail, working staysail, and working jib. On the exterior deck were an inflatable raft, a rubber dingy, an anchor mounted on the starboard bow of the deck, and a stainless tube pulpit mounted to the bow of the boat. The boat also housed a

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What was clear was that the craft was devoid of life and had obviously been abandoned many days before. Placed in plain view were detailed logbooks outlining forged coordinates, a logbook outlining his true coordinates, as well as the 25,000-word manifesto that he believed to be his ultimate life's

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took place on 23 September into the river at Brundall when Crowhurst's wife, Clare, tried to christen the ship by breaking a bottle of champagne against the boat's hull. However, the bottle didn't shatter and instead bounced off the hull, which prompted John Eastwood to take the bottle and properly

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On 21 December, Crowhurst reported, “split skin of starboard float.” The internal wooden frames had come away from the plywood, leaving a split half-way along the float. He attributes the hole to the workmanship of the Eastwood shipyard, as it had formed in the fibreglass that they had laid on the

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difficult to steer, resulting in a bizarre and erratic zigzag sailing pattern. On 15 November, in the face of extreme problems with the craft, Crowhurst set about calculating the pros and cons of continuing the race. Eventually, he came to the conclusion that dropping out would only be a temporary

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Over the years, various elements have been removed, including the aluminium mast and rigging and most of the parts of value including the metal fittings and tie-downs, leaving a mostly empty hull. In 1998, the hull was essentially intact, but since then the remains of the vessel have continued to

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To transition the boat into a leisure craft, Francis had Crowhurst's streamlined doghouse opened up and built taller, and added much larger windows. With this, the main cabin was redesigned so it could sleep up to 10 people. Francis also modified the stern significantly; removing the fin keep and

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Below deck the built-out consisted of a built-in writing and eating table with a small red cushioned seat that would have hidden the ‘main computer’ but instead obscured a tangle of carefully colour-coded, but unconnected, wires that hung throughout the cabin. On the starboard side was a built-in

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s modifications were made in order to accommodate numerous technological and electronic inventions meant primarily for preventing the ship from capsizing in large seas. Because of its multi-hulled design, a trimaran is fast and fairly stable due to its weight dispersal over a large surface area.

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was designed to be very sparse, with a sizable reduction of living space that was intentionally designed to reduce weight, wind and water resistance. The original designs called for a high enclosed wheelhouse superstructure that Crowhurst abandoned for a flush deck that only allowed for a small

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On 23 June, he entered his last sun-sight in his logbook and entered no more navigational data at any point afterward. In the hours before what would become his final mental collapse, he repeatedly tried to reach his wife Clare on the telephone, but was foiled by failing equipment. On 24 June,

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floats. This split grew the longer Crowhurst neglected to attend to it, and as he had no means of repairing such a sizable hole on board, he would have to stop for the needed supplies. For nearly a month he meandered on the coast of South America, weighing his options.

592:, who planned to create a full-sized replica of the boat in its dilapidated state as an artistic piece. In 2017, McKean led a group of researchers and archaeologists to Cayman Brac to produce an archival quality, high-resolution digital scan of what remained of the 257:(who had the approved concession to construct Piver Trimarans in the UK); because Cox Marine did not have the capacity to then complete the fit-out within Crowhurst's desired time frame, it was agreed that the hulls would then be shipped to L.J. Eastwood Ltd. in 458:

Crowhurst began writing a 25,000-word manifesto on life, escape, time-space, and defeating time to change from “first order differentials” to “second order differentials” – at times lucid, at other moments, especially to the end, cryptic and incoherent.

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designs, the decking was painted with double polyurethane paint as opposed to being sheathed in a fibreglass skin as the hulls had been by Cox Marine Ltd. While this did not present a structural issue, it created greater aesthetic deviation from the

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design. The boat was completed just days before the race's deadline, leaving testing and innumerable details incomplete and the boat roughly 200 per cent over its projected budget. On 31 October 1968, the last day possible to begin the race, the

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sight unseen. In Jamaica, the boat was purchased by Kingston hotelier and businessman (and ex-choreographer from New York) Larry Wirth, who used it as a private pleasure craft until 1973, when it was sold to Roderick "Bunny" Francis, a young

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Due to the difficult economic climate in Jamaica in the 1970s, Francis sold the boat in 1975 for $ 12,000 to George McDermot who kept and sailed the boat out of what is now Morgan's Harbour. In 1977 George McDermot was moving his family to

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was swung into the river bank by the tide and her starboard float was holed. On this maiden journey, it was also discovered that the Electron could not perform windward, an issue Crowhurst would encounter again once the race began.

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with a fledgling trawling company. Francis made significant alterations to the boat to alleviate the austere conditions Crowhurst had demanded within the living quarters, and to make the boat less difficult to manoeuvre and sail.

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On 6 March 1969, he dropped anchor at Rio Salado, landing in Argentina at 8:30 am, and grounded himself in the quickly receding tides in order to repair the sizeable hole. He stayed for two days and set sail again on 8 March.

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As he attempted to bail the water, the 15-foot seas came pouring back into the opening. On Wednesday, 13 November, a leak in the cockpit hatch flooded the engine compartment and his Onan generator. Design flaws made the

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work detailing “instructions” written directly to humankind on attaining transcendence. After the analysis of the logbooks, it was determined that the boat had been abandoned nine days prior to its discovery.

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For provisions, Crowhurst had dried vegetables, powdered milk, tea, porridge, butter, powdered eggs, bread, jam, champagne, mustard, a few tins of beer, rum, barley wine and various tinned or dehydrated meals.

403:, and then by sea to Teignmouth. The voyage was meant to be completed in three days, but instead took two weeks. On this voyage, due to an abrupt halt commanded by Crowhurst to avoid a chain ferry, the 1073: 490:, and when no response by flare, flag or horn was returned, a team of sailors boarded the trimaran to find it unkempt and bearing signs of life, work and cooking, but nothing overtly suspicious. 281:

shortage of the appropriate stock of soft rubber needed to create a watertight seal. A harder, less malleable alternative was substituted which made the possibility of leaking much greater.

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set sail from Teignmouth Harbour at 4:52 pm on 31 October 1968. Based on his logs, it is believed Crowhurst's voyage lasted in total 243 days; his last log entry is dated 24 June 1969. The

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protrusion that was anchored to the main hull and fibreglassed over. During this period in Jamaica, the boat mostly stayed moored and was sailed for short pleasure cruises in

1067: 540:. A number of the deck hatches were modified, and the circular covers were cut and made square with a more easily removable hatch. Francis then had the entire boat 476:

captained by Richard Box at latitude 33° 11’ North, longitude 40° 28’ West, about 1,800 miles from England. This was very close to where the famous ghost ship

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of the boat, connecting the port, main hull and starboard floats together. This required the main mast to be positioned atop the forward, reinforced crossarm.

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The Brundall shipyard had two partners, John Eastwood and John Elliot. Eastwood acted as the main boatbuilder and engineer. According to Eastwood, many of the

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and the surrounding site (see "External links"). By 2018 the boat's name plates had been removed and the words "Dream Boat" were sprayed on the transom.

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shortly after its boatyard launch in September 1968 (still from contemporary newsreel or amateur footage, as reproduced in the documentary "Deep Water")

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adding a skeg with propeller shaft for a trolling motor. Topside the stern, two seating blocks were added to provide a seating position for the

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s British funders, wanting to recoup some of their financial investment but also put aside the tragic and embarrassing event, sold the boat in

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and released in February 2018. The replica is now owned by Michael Jones McKean and is currently in dry-docked storage on the island of

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Crowhurst became convinced that the trimaran model, with its potential for extreme speed, would serve him best to win the race. The

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www.teignmouthelectron.org: "Teignmouth Electron - 2001 by Edward Arlen". Archived copy via Internet Archive, date 29 December 2004

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www.teignmouthelectron.org: "Teignmouth Electron - The Mystery Part III". Archived copy via Internet Archive, date 29 December 2004

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at sea. The journey was meticulously catalogued in Crowhurst's found logbooks, which also documented the captain's thoughts,

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His last log entry is dated 24 June 1969; the final radio transmission was made on 29 June 1969. On 1 July at 10:29 am

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The additional weight of the buoyancy bag meant that the main mast had to be shortened by four feet from the original

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self-steering system with a wind vane and servo blade as well as a Hengist-Horsa wind speed and direction indicator.

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Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, 1970: "The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst". Hodder & Stoughton, 317 pp.

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Tacita Dean, 1999: "Teignmouth Electron". Book Works in association with the National Maritime Museum, 72 pp.

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Tacita Dean, 1999: "Teignmouth Electron". Book Works in association with the National Maritime Museum, 72 pp.

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deteriorate. Well past the point of preservation, in 2007, McDermot sold the boat to American artist

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In 2015, Heritage Marine in England began construction of an elaborate, full-scale replica of the

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photographed in Teignmouth harbour during the shoot for the 2017 movie "The Mercy", June 2015

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island, where its remains were still visible as of 2019 but in an advanced state of decay.

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and sold the boat to his brother Winston McDermot. After a short while, Winston moved his

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https://www.shipsnostalgia.com/threads/crowhurst-do-entry-portishead-radio.197842/page-3

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was at sea for a total of 252 days before being found ghosting, adrift a shipping lane.

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in the Dominican Republic and then taken for assessment to the Receiver of Wrecks in

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Tacita Dean: Aerial View of Teignmouth Electron, Cayman Brac 16th of September 1998

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Tacita Dean: Aerial View of Teignmouth Electron, Cayman Brac 16th of September 1998

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Another recreation of the main interior cabin was made for the 2006 documentary

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The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, Nicholas Tomalin, Ron Hall, 1970

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The abandoned craft was found at 7:50 am on 10 July 1969, by Royal Mail Ship

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in his 1967 circumnavigation. The boat was in part funded by the town of

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