Teignmouth Electron

The journey was meticulously catalogued in Crowhurst's found logbooks, which also documented the captain's thoughts, philosophy, and eventual mental breakdown.

Construction on the Teignmouth Electron began in June 1968 after Crowhurst failed to acquire the vessel Gipsy Moth IV, previously sailed by Sir Francis Chichester in his 1967 circumnavigation.

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 Brightlingsea (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.

Crowhurst, anxious about the rough waters of the Roaring Forties and Cape Horn, had plans to install a buoyancy bag on the mainmast.

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 original designs called for a high enclosed wheelhouse superstructure that Crowhurst abandoned for a flush deck that only allowed for a small rounded “doghouse”.

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.

Powering the 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 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: 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.

The attempted launch of the Teignmouth Electron 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It is presumed that shortly after this, Crowhurst, his chronometer, and falsified logbook 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 10 July 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.

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.

After its discovery by the RMS Picardy, the Teignmouth Electron was offloaded at Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic[2] and then taken for assessment to the Receiver of Wrecks in 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 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 entrepreneur with a fledgling trawling company.

To transition the boat into a leisure craft, Francis had Crowhurst's streamlined doghouse opened up and built taller, and added much larger windows.

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).

[8] 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 Electron and the surrounding site (see "External links").

[9] 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.

The build was funded by StudioCanal and the BBC for a film depiction of the Crowhurst/Electron saga titled The Mercy, starring Colin Firth and released in February 2018.