In early 1968, desperate entrepreneur Donald Crowhurst was trying to sell a nautical navigation device he had developed when he saw that the Sunday Times would be sponsoring the Golden Globe Race, the first ever solo, round-the-world sailing competition. An avid amateur sailor, Crowhurst sensed a marketing opportunity and shocked the world by entering the competition using an untested trimaran of his own design. Shock soon turned to amazement when he quickly took the lead, checking in by radio message from locations far ahead of his seasoned competitors. But on July 10, 1969, roughly eight months after he had sailed from England--and less than two weeks from his expected triumphant return--his wife was informed that his boat, the Teignmouth Electron, had been discovered drifting quietly, abandoned in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Crowhurst was missing, assumed drowned. How did he come to such an end when his race had begun with such incredible promise? In this masterpiece of investigative journalism, Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall reconstruct one of the greatest modern stories of one man's descent into self-delusion, public deception, and madness. Based on in-depth interviews with Crowhurst's family and friends, combined with gripping excerpts from his logbooks that revealed (among other things) he had been falsifying his locations all along, Tomalin and Hall paint an unforgettable, haunting portrait of a complex, deeply troubled man and his final fateful journey.
Sent i oktober 1968 stakk Donald Crowhurst til sjøs som en av ni deltakere i Golden Globe race jorden rundt non stop. Åtte måneder senere ble hans fartøy, trimaranen Teignmouth Electron funnet drivende i Atlanteren i rolig sjø og i full orden, uten spor etter Crowhurst. I England var det gjort store forberedelser for å ta imot Crowhurst som vinner av racet. Radiomeldinger han hadde sendt hjem, viste at han lå godt foran sine konkurrenter. Men ved nærmere undersøkelse av loggbøker og notater kom det fram at Crowhurst hadde holdt verden for narr. I virkeligheten hadde han aldri vært ute av Atlanteren! Journalistene Tomalin og Hall har skrevet denne utrolige og underlige historien. En historie som gjennom de siste 35 årene har inspirert til romaner, teaterstykker, opera, musikkverk, multimediaforestillinger, radio-dokumentar, TV-teater og kunstverk. Den har blitt gitt ut en rekke ganger på den engelske markedet, men utrolig nok bare en gang i Norge. Donald Crowhurst (1932-1969) ble født i India, han flyttet ti år gammel til Pakistan og ble som fjortenåring sendt på kostskole i England. Da Crowhurst som den siste av ni deltagere la av?gårde 31. oktober 1968 var målet å bli den første til å seile jorden rundt non-stop. Han la avgårde sent og var dårlig forberedt. Turen skulle vise seg å bli hans endelikt.
