Lifestyles - The Quality Of Your Life Is Shaped By Whom You Want To Impress
Lifestyles - The Quality Of Your Life Is Shaped By Whom You Want To Impress
Jul 6, 2022 by Morgan Housel
“Their outcomes seemed to center on the fact that Crowhurst was addicted to what other people thought of his accomplishments, while Moitessier was disgusted by them. One lived for external benchmarks, the other only cared about internal measures of happiness.”
Fifty-four years ago this month, in a push for publicity, The Sunday Times offered £5,000 to whoever could sail solo nonstop around the world the fastest. It was technically a race, but that was an afterthought, as no one had ever completed the feat. There were no qualification requirements and few rules. Nine men joined the race, one of whom had never sailed. Just one man finished, 312 days and 27,000 miles later. But it was two participants who never completed the race that generated the most news. One ended up dead, the other found himself happier than ever. Both outcomes came from decisions made at sea, but neither had anything to do with sailing.
The two men, Donald Crowhurst and Bernard Moitessier, are astounding examples of how the quality of your life is shaped by whom you want to impress. Their stories are extreme, but what they dealt with was just a magnified version of what ordinary people face all the time, and likely something you’re facing right now.
Donald Crowhurst was a tinkerer who came up with his own boat modifications. Convinced his innovations could propel him to win the Sunday Times race, he faced just one obstacle: he was broke, and stood no chance of financing the race himself.
Crowhurst struck a deal with an English businessman who agreed to cover the cost of the race under two conditions: They would orchestrate a media frenzy, portraying Crowhurst as a sailing savant. And if Crowhurst didn’t finish, he would owe all the money back.
Crowhurst left Teignmouth on October 31st, 1968, the last day participants of the race could begin their voyage. His boat, the Electron, had been so heavily modified, so weighed down with half-finished gizmos and gimmicks, that it was barely seaworthy for a short sail near home, let alone a solo trip around the globe. Crowhurst knew it. He broke down in tears in front of his wife the night before he left.
Two weeks into the race, as Crowhurst had covered less than half his intended distance, the Electron sprung a leak. “This bloody boat is just falling to pieces due to lack of attention to engineering detail,” Crowhurst wrote in his diary. In the calm waters of the South Atlantic, the small leak posed little threat and could be bailed with a bucket. But continuing on to the treacherous Southern Ocean would bring certain catastrophe.
So Crowhurst seemed to have two options: Continue the race and face ruin at sea, or return home and face bankruptcy and humiliation.
He in fact chose a third option, which was outright fraud.
By mid-November Crowhurst began loitering in the south Atlantic, drifting in circles in calm water. He then began sending fake coordinates back to England, giving the impression that he was still on track, rounding Cape Horn, on his way to circle the globe.
He went virtually nowhere for months, which was the plan: By mid-summer, when enough time had passed to have plausibly circled the globe, Crowhurst hoped to quietly sail back to England, “finish” the race, and hope no one noticed that during his round-the-world voyage he never actually left the hemisphere.
As Crowhurst sailed back to England he realized he did not want to appear to win the race, because if he did the media and judges would scrutinize his logs and uncover the deception, whereas no one cares about the runner-up. After receiving word on the location of other race participants, Crowhurst timed his return so that he would finish the race in third place, which seemed good enough to maintain dignity yet low enough to avoid suspicion.
But then the boat that was in second place sank. And after miscalculating his return time, Crowhurst was suddenly on track to beat the sailor who had been in first place.
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