Posted by Peter H on November 06, 2007 at 23:30:00 from 86.130.127.88 user Peter_H.
According to the rather loose TarBoard rules, this ought to be on-topic, as it would beyond any doubt have interested Arthur Ransome. I have just watched a film (on Channel 4 - UK) about Donald Crowhurst's tragic attempt at a record round-the-world single-handed voyage in 1968-69. I am familiar with the details, but the film moved me all the same. Crowhurst fell way behind time and his boat leaked, so he drifted around the South Atlantic and forged his log to indicate circumnavigation. In the end, fearing exposure, he evidently stepped over the side, and his boat was found drifting unmanned.
His logs and tapes were found, and these are haunting. There is a dark side to ocean sailing, and Crowhurst found it. Something happens to sailors alone for a time at sea. I am not a sailor, so I can only guess at it. AR might have had some idea about this. One can find an extraordinary type of peace as well. Moitessier, the French contender, suddenly turned aside within six weeks of home and began sailing round the globe a second time for reasons of his own - extraordinary!
Do these emotions and events ring any bells with any of the TarBoard sailors? I apologise for bringing up a serious topic, but we can't go on for ever talking about cold tea and water pipes. I don't want to make cheap remarks - there is room for the trivial as well as the serious on TarBoard - but AR did take sailing, and indeed life, seriously and perhaps we can also just occasionally?