Teignmouth Electron was 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. It became a ghost ship after Crowhurst reported false positions and is presumed to have 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. Sold after its recovery, the vessel passed through several subsequent hands, being re-purposed and re-fitted as a cruise vessel and later, dive boat, before eventually being beached in a damaged state at Cayman Brac, a small Caribbean island, where its remains were still visible as of 2019 but in an advanced state of decay.
Design and construction Construction on 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.The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, Nicholas Tomalin, Ron Hall, 1970 Construction of the boat (estimated at £6,000—almost £90,000 in 2025 pounds, although final costs were around double this figure) was funded by local successful businessman Stanley Best, who had already invested £1,000 in Crowhurst's business, Electron Utilisation, and hoped by this means to recoup not only his investment in Electron Utilisation, but also acquire publicity for his own business in the event of Crowhurst's successful return. (In the event of non-completion, Best's sponsorship deal also included a clause that Electron Utilisation could be obliged to purchase the boat from him, which however might also bankrupt the fledgling company so would not in fact supply the "safety net" that Best may have envisaged). The boat was named first after the town of Teignmouth, Devon, England, as part of a deal with Crowhurst's publicist Rodney Hallworth who, as public relations officer for Teignmouth Town Council, hoped to leverage the name to attract additional local sponsorship (which apparently did not eventuate), in addition to "Electron" from the first part of the name of Crowhurst's business.Tomalin & Hall, chapter 3.
With only secondhand accounts to guide him, Crowhurst had become 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 boat 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. Eastwood Ltd. of Brundall, 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 boat 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 boat would be able to. Crowhurst, anxious about the rough waters of the Roaring Forties and Cape Horn, had plans to install a buoyancy bag on the mainmast. This bag 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, Crowhurst's "computer" was never installed in the boat.
The additional weight of the buoyancy bag meant that the main mast had to be shortened by four feet from the original Victress model. 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 centre 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 -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 included four reinforced crossarms with three—or in the case of the forward crossarm, four—vertical runs of plywood spanning the entire beam 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 fibreglass 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 per cent over its projected budget. On 31 October 1968, the last day possible to begin the race, Teignmouth Electron was towed from Teignmouth Harbour 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”.
Onboard and exterior equipment The Electrons sail configuration consisted of No. 1 mainsail, No. 1 mizzen sail, working staysail, and working jib. 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 accommodation 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 galley (kitchen) with a stainless sink basin and small tap 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, a Racal RA 6217 communications receiver, a Shannon Mar 3 transmitter/receiver, headsets, Morse keys, switch panels, and gross amounts of radio spares. 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 galley consisted of a small burner, a pot and sink with freshwater supplied from eight 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 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.
For 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 Teignmouth Electron took place on 23 September into the river at Brundall when Crowhurst's wife, Clare, tried to christen the vessel 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, and then by sea 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, an issue Crowhurst would encounter again once the race began.
On 13 October an experienced sailor, Lieutenant Commander Peter Eden, volunteered to accompany Crowhurst on his last leg from Cowes to Teignmouth. Crowhurst had fallen into the water several times while in Cowes, and as he and Eden climbed aboard Teignmouth Electron, he once again ended up in the water after slipping on the outboard bracket on the stern of the rubber dinghy. Eden's description of his two days with Crowhurst provides the most expert independent assessment available for both boat and sailor before the start of the race. He recalls that the trimaran sailed immensely swiftly, but could get no closer to the wind than 60 degrees. The speed often reached 12 knots, but the vibrations encountered caused the screws on the Hasler self-steering gear to come loose. Eden said, "We had to keep leaning over the counter to do up the screws. It was a tricky and time consuming business. I told Crowhurst he should get the fixings welded if he wanted it to survive a longer trip!" Eden also commented that the Hasler worked superbly and the boat was "certainly nippy." Eden reported that Crowhurst's sailing techniques were good, "But I felt his navigation was a mite slapdash. I prefer, even in the Channel, to know exactly where I am. He didn't take too much bother with it, merely jotting down figures on a few sheets of paper from time to time." After struggling against westerlies and having to tack out into the Channel twice, they arrived at 2.30 pm on 15 October, where an enthusiastic BBC film crew started filming Eden in the belief he was Crowhurst. There were 16 days to get ready before the race's deadline on 31 October. ("The strange voyage of Donald Crowhurst." by Ron Hall and Nicholas Tomalin.)
The Electron set sail from Teignmouth Harbour at 4:52 pm on 31 October 1968. Based on his logs, it is believed Crowhurst's voyage lasted in total 243 days; his last log entry is dated 24 June 1969. The Electron was at sea for a total of 252 days before being found ghosting, adrift a shipping lane.