Madness at Sea: A Horrifying True Story

It’s amazing how he was still clear minded enough to calculate all of those false coordinates while steadily losing his sanity. An engineer to the end.

I find it equally poetic and tragic that what brought Crowhurst beyond the brink of sanity was, in a sense, the same reason Mattisier decided to go back into sea... The fake expectations of an uncaring world, one that Crowhurst just wanted to appease and that Mattisier desperately longed to escape.

I felt such a tremendous empathy for him while watching this. We've all had situations where we got in over our heads and didn't know how to get back out of it - but rarely with stakes so high. What a very human, very sad, story.

Possibly the saddest part of this entire story to me is that the sailor whose boat sunk, Nigel Tetley, had completed his circumnavigation and only needed to sail about 5,000 nautical miles back into port to claim the prize money for fastest voyage. His ship, the Victress, was in pretty bad shape, but Tetley could have taken it easy and coasted along to win. He believed that Crowhurst was right behind him though because of the false navigation data he was providing, so Tetley pushed his ship as hard as he could and that's why it sunk. Had Crowhurst not unintentionally tricked Tetley into thinking that he needed to sail as hard as he could to win the race, Tetley could have comfortably rode his ailing ship back to port and won.

You didn't mention the foreboding incident of his wife's attempt to christen the boat but the bottle bounced off the hull.

Crowhurst's final days are part Lovecraftian horror, part Greek tragedy. His philosophical entries are so haunting- a slow, gutwrenching descent into insanty. Your storytelling does Crowhurst's tale justice. I hope you will continue to relay other historical accounts such as this.

The art style is part optimistic part pessimistic. Crude and beautiful, hard to look at and impossible to look away from but in a good way. I love it.

This is like a real life Edgat Allan Poe story, simply riveting, so very recognizably human, it even has the Poe theme of actual, physical isolation as an allegory for the gnawing anxiety of having to live down one's own deceptions

This is an excellent telling of this story. I have heard about it before, but never with such empathy for this man. Your narration and artwork is fantastic, I am thrilled to have found this channel. It deserves more recognition. By the way. Robin Knox-Johnston was the only participant to complete the race and was awarded the golden globe prize. He donated the prize sum of £5000 to Crowhurst's family.

Hearing him being faced with mortality and the idea of being forgotten after he died, indirectly asking his wife to stop him, but her (without malice of course) asking him the question that haunted him internally and it breaking him... killed me. Poor man.

Ego is deadly. He had so much to live for…such a shame. Wonderful content. Love the artwork, presentation and compassionate storytelling.

Both Tetley and Crowhurst were using self built catamarans. Tetley saw the the race as a battle between himself and Crowhurst as to who had built the better boat. It was Crowhurst's false positions that that made Tetley push his own boat so hard that it ultimately broke up. If he'd just carried on as normal he could have beaten Knox-Johnston and won the race, which he later realised when Crowhurst's deceptions became public. He never really recovered from this and eventually committed suicide a few years later so Crowhurst was ultimately responsible for Tetley's death as well as his own. Very tragic.

That is one of the saddest stories I've heard in a long time. If only he could have realized that turning around immediately because the boat was essentially unfinished would have been the best way to save face, but I think he wouldn't have gotten himself into the situation if he could think that way.

Truly tragic event. His wife was so supportive, can't imagine the wreckage of despair she felt when she found out.

The fact that he was under so much stress and pressure probably made his descent into madness that much easier. Such a sad story

Bernard Moitissier actually wrote a book about his journey called "The Long Way" and goes into detail on why he kept going. It's an amazing read, and serves as basically the complete opposite perspective on Crowhurst's tragic failure. I highly recommend it. There's also a full length documentary on Crowhurst's journey called "Deep Water" that is also excellent. if you are remotely interested in this story, both are absolutely worth checking out.

Just one giant never ending anxiety/panic attack. Poor guy, he was in an impossible situation

Thank you for this. My dad, who passed away recently, read many books about sailing. One about this particular man was his favorite, I think. He often recommended it to me, but I never did read it. He was never able to sail himself but it was his dream. Part of me thinks he recognized himself in this man.

This story is indeed tragic however it is tough to feel bad for Donald when ultimately, it was his decision to gamble the financial welfare of himself and his family on a hopeless endeavor. This video mentions repeatedly how "intelligent" Donald is, yet choosing to sail around the world alone and with no professional sailing experience is the most naïve thing I have ever heard of.

Horrifying? No. Harrowing, absolutely! What a sad ending. The mind at sea. You did him a service with showing his humanity. Thank you for this telling