The Teignmouth Electron is a 41-foot trimaran sailing vessel designed explicitly for Donald Crowhurst's ill-fated attempt to sail around the world in the Golden Globe Race of 1968. She became a ghost ship after Crowhurst reported false positions and ultimately committed suicide at sea. The journey was meticulously catalogued in Crowhurst's found logbooks, which also documented the captain's thoughts, philosophy, and eventual mental breakdown.
Video Teignmouth Electron
Design and construction
Construction on the Teignmouth Electron began in June 1968 after Crowhurst failed to acquire the famous vessel Gipsy Moth IV, previously sailed by Sir Francis Chichester in a single-handed circumnavigation with a single stop in 1967.
After being denied the rights to the Gipsy Moth, Crowhurst sought funding for a vessel built specifically for the round-the-world voyage. The boat was in part funded by the town of Teignmouth, Devon, England, and business investor Stanley Best, who also invested in Crowhurst's business, Electron Utilisation. With the two primary funders in place, the ship was named the Teignmouth Electron as an amalgamation of the business and the town that funded it.
Crowhurst became convinced that the trimaran model, with its potential for extreme speed, would serve him best to win the race. The Electron was based on designs for Arthur Piver's Victress-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--a complete build period of less than 5 months--Crowhurst chose to have the hulls fabricated at Cox Marine Ltd. in Brightlingsea, which had experience producing Victress trimarans, then had the hulls shipped to L.J. Eastwood Ltd. in Brundall of Norfolk for final fit and completion.
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 Electron'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. 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 new invention to his ship--a buoyancy bag placed on the mainmast, that 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, as well as a potential lack of technical ability, the main computer was never installed in the ship; although the electronic wiring that ran underneath the decking and along the roof of the cabin was in place, it terminated in a tangle of unconnected wires.
The additional weight of the buoyancy bag necessitated that the main mast had to be shortened by a metric of four feet from the original Victress model--leaving the main mast at a stout, thirty-eight feet. The masts were made of aluminium alloy 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 center hull. This translated to a deck design with an unusual amount of hatches. Additionally, these hatches were inadequately sealed due to a 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.
On the deck, two layers of 3/8-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 includes four reinforced crossarms with three, or in the case of the forward crossarm, four, vertical runs of plywood spanning the entire beam (width) 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.
Additionally, against Crowhurst's wishes and the original Victress designs, the decking was painted with double polyurethane paint as opposed to being sheathed in a fiberglass 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 Victress design. The boat was completed just days before the race's deadline, leaving testing and innumerable details incomplete and the boat roughly 200 percent over its projected budget. On October 31, 1968, the last day possible to begin the race, the Teignmouth Electron and Donald Crowhurst were towed from Teignmouth Harbor and sailed into the Atlantic.
The Electron 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 rounded "doghouse". It has been speculated that the design itself and the austere modifications Crowhurst insisted on might have contributed to his mental decline.
Maps Teignmouth Electron
Onboard and exterior equipment
The Electron's sail configuration consisted of No. 1 mainsail, No. 1 mizzen sail, working staysail, and working jib. Additionally, 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 Hasler self-steering system with a wind vane and servo blade as well as a Hengist-Horsa wind speed and direction indicator.
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 chart table with a vise mounted to it. On the port side mid-stay, was a small kitchen (galley) 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.
For communication, Crowhurst had a Marconi Kestrel radio-telephone, Racal RA 6217 communications receiver, a Shannon Mar 3 transmitter/receiver, headsets, Morse keys, switch panels, and gross amounts of radio spares. Powering the existing electronics on the boat was an Onan petrol-driven generator that was 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 fresh water supplied from 8 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 much with lightweight Tupperware plastic containers for storing food, electronic components and a second-hand Bell and Howell 16mm camera and Uher tape recorder that had been provided by the BBC for documenting the journey. Crowhurst brought aboard only 5 books; Albert Einstein's Relativity, the Special and the General Theory; Shanties from the Seven Seas; Servomechanisms; The Gypsy Moth Circles the World; and Mathematics of Engineering Systems.
In 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.
Sailing history
The attempted launch of the Teignmouth Electron took place on September 23 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 break it against the boat, completing the launch.
The Electron was tested in open water from Brundall, down the River Yare, 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 Electron 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, predicting the trouble Crowhurst would encounter once the race began.
The Electron set sail on October 31, 1968, at 4:52 pm from Teignmouth Harbour, the last possible day to qualify for the Golden Globe race. Based on his logs, it is believed Crowhurst's voyage lasted in total 243 days - his last log entry dated June 24, 1969. The Electron was at sea for a total of 252 days before being found ghosting, adrift a shipping lane.
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 result in loss of control of the craft while Crowhurst was not at the helm. His logline, which judged distance traveled, 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 November 5, he discovered that the port bow float and tack were taking on water, and the whole compartment had been flooded up to the deck.
Unfortunately, as he attempted to bail the water, the 15-foot seas came pouring back into the opening. On Wednesday, November 13, a leak in the cockpit hatch flooded the engine compartment and his Onan generator. Design flaws made the Electron difficult to steer, resulting in a bizarre and erratic zigzag sailing pattern. Of these problems, all were relatively minor and could have been addressed if the craft had a proper time window to be tested and tuned. However, together they provided exponential difficulty to someone who was essentially an amateur sailor.
On November 15, 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 failure, one that could be mended with an additional try at the Golden Globe in the future. On November 16, 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 December 1. It is on Friday, December 6 that he begins to actively construct a false navigational record, giving himself up to 243 mile per day runs in a communication to Hallworth on the 10th. In some cases, his fabricated mileage is almost triple his actual achieved distance.
On December 21, 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 fiberglass that they had laid on the 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.
On March 6, 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 March 8.
Shortly after midnight on May 21, 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 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 Teignmouth Electron 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 no doubt occur for the winner. Upon hearing the news about Tetley, Crowhurst's psychology changed more radically.
Final days
On June 23, 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 failed to reach his wife Clare on the telephone. On June 24, 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. Here it is important to note that near his side was Einstein's Relativity, which delved into the physics of space, time and the metaphysics of time which was partially induced by what Crowhurst believed to be a broken chronometer.
His last log entry is dated June 24, 1969; the final radio transmission was made on June 29, 1969. On July 1 at 10:29 AM British Standard Time, 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 log book all went overboard while the Electron was set to continue sailing at roughly two knots.
The abandoned craft was found at 7:50 am on July 10, 1969, by Royal Mail Ship Picardy captained by Richard Box at latitude 33° 11' North, longitude 40° 28' West, about 1,800 miles from England. This location proved ominous as it was very close to where the famous ghost ship Mary Celeste had been found almost a hundred years before off the coast of the Azores. As designated by maritime tradition, three foghorn blasts were given by the Picardy, 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.
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 and with them his grand lie, as well as the 25,000-word manifesto that he believed to be his ultimate life's 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.
Jamaica
After its discovery by the RMS Picardy, the Teignmouth Electron was taken to Florida and later to Jamaica. The Electron's British funders, wanting to recoup some of their financial investment, but also put aside the tragic and embarrassing event, sold the boat in auction sight unseen. In Jamaica, the boat was purchased by Roderick Bunny Francis, a young entrepreneur 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 which also made the boat less difficult to maneuver and sail.
To transition the boat into a leisure craft, Francis had Crowhurst's streamlined doghouse opened up and built taller and also 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 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 helmsman. 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 fibreglassed and repainted. At this point, the port of registration (Bridgwater) was painted below the name of the vessel.
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 foot long, four inches wide, with a six-inch protrusion that was anchored to the main hull and fiberglassed over. During this period in Jamaica, the boat mostly stayed moored and was sailed for short pleasure cruises in Montego Bay.
With the Jamaican economy struggling in the 1970s, Francis sold the boat in 1972 for $12,000 to George McDermot who kept and sailed the boat out of what is now Morgans Harbor. It has been remarked that the modifications made by Francis had created a great sailing boat. In 1977 George McDermot was moving his family to Miami and sold the boat to his brother Winston McDermot. Upon purchase, the McDermot brothers and a small crew sailed the Electron from Jamaica to Grand Cayman where it encountered a storm.
After a short while, Winston moved his scuba diving operation, and with it the Teignmouth Electron to Cayman Brac, 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. While on land awaiting repairs, it was damaged by Hurricane Gilbert during the September of 1988. Well aware of the boat's history, McDermot had eventual intentions to repair and even restore her closer to Crowhurst's original design, though these plans never materialized.
Over the years, various elements were 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.
History on land
The Teignmouth Electron has sat on land in the same location on Cayman Brac (19°41'10.40"N by 79°52'37.83"W ) since 1988, slowly decaying with the elements. Over the years, knowledge of the boat has continued to grow due in large part to Tomalin and Halls' skilful reconstruction and interpretation of the hoax.
The 1970 publication is now considered a masterpiece of investigative journalism and has been translated into many languages even making a bestseller list. Over the years plays, essays, poems, journalistic accounts, retellings, songs, films, sculpture, photographs and para fiction and documentaries have also helped to place the boat in sailing history.
Prior to 2001, images of the boat depict a complete and intact craft. But even as early as 1998, one can begin to detect slight sagging and fissures most noticeable in the starboard float - no doubt due to the nature of its being cantilevered 4 to 5 ft in the air for over a decade. In 2006 American artist Michael Jones McKean purchased the boat, well past the point of restoration from Winston McDermott.
Transition into the landscape
At the time of sale to Jones McKean, the decking and internal support members linking the starboard float to the main hull had totally fractured leaving it splintered and resting on the ground. Accumulated wear and damage from water, salt, wind and sun contributed to the ship's fiberglass fully separating from the plywood decking and most of the hulls. The plywood was also in various states of delamination, or total decomposition.
The accelerated state of decomposition from 2004 - to present can be attributed to three primary factors. First, the normal arc of decay for manmade objects. Second, the rapid growth of a Casuarina tree (Australian Pine) growing directly above the Electron whose needle debris created a dense mulch-like material further accelerating the decomposition of the vessel's own organic material. Finally, an unusually intense 5-year period of tropical storms and hurricanes starting with Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Hurricane Wilma and Emily of 2005, Hurricane Dean of 2007, Hurricane Paloma of 2008, followed by Hurricane Gustav also in 2008. Because of the Electron's proximity to the ocean and general exposure to the elements, the boat has borne the full force of each of these storms and more. Over the decades, it has become more and more married to the surrounding landscape.
Based on the photographic record, a drainage drench following Hurricane Paloma in 2008 was dug to the west of the Electron near her port side float. The Australian Pine growing directly against the port side of the craft probably saved what remained of the ship from additional disturbance that would have further compromised its structural integrity, thus accelerating the decay.
Vegetation
The pine tree has grown directly alongside the edge of port side float of the Electron. According to photographic record the tree began growing around 2001 - growing in reverse to the Electron's degeneration. The tree has averaged about 2 feet of growth per year. Over the years the tree had shed thousands of long needles depositing a think carpet of organic matter on the Electron's fractured surfaces - further accelerating its decay. It is interesting to note that the Casuarina tree needles have allelopathic properties, which stimulate the growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms.
Vandalism
Due to its remote location, the boat has been able to stay in plain sight for decades with minimal vandalism. That said, over the years various trophy hunters have removed pieces and fragments - most noticeably the painted name plates on both the port and starboard sides of the main hull have been cut out and removed. The transom of the ship has also been spray-painted to read "Dream Boat".
Replica
In 2015, Heritage Marine in England began construction of an elaborate, full-scale replica of the Teignmouth Electron. By piecing together photos as well as original diagrams, an extremely detailed reconstruction was achieved. The build was funded by StudioCanal and the BBC for a film depiction of the Crowhurst/Electron saga titled The Mercy. The film, starring Colin Firth, went on release in February 2018.
The boat's ownership was legally transferred to artist Michael Jones McKean and is currently in dry docked in storage on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea.
Another recreation of the main interior cabin was made for the 2006 documentary Deep Water. The lead designer was Jayne Linz Roberts. This replica no longer exists.
References
External links
- Google search for images of the Teignmouth Electron
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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