FWIW: Just a little bit more
history on this boat if anyone is interested. Probably not many people know this story so I will tell it.
After Crowhurst "left" his boat it floated around in the Atlantic until a Haitian freighter brought it to
Haiti and a person from
Jamaica ended up
buying it. This is in the late seventies and at that time I was living in
Jamaica. He approached me because we had a mutual friend who told him I was a sailor and he needed a sailor/navigator to take the boat to the
Cayman Islands. The plan was to ultimately convert it to a Dive boat.
At the time I knew nothing about the
history of this boat or its sailing capabilities however said yes in about 2 seconds.
We then did a quick prep on the boat for the next few days and were off. The crew consisted of myself, the two owners with limited sailing experience , a friend from
England also with limited experience and a Jamaican who came as the cook. I myself at the time had some ocean cruising experience but a lot of a
racing background so felt comfortable with the crew on a relatively short
passage.
To say the boat was a dog is being nice but after running the
diesel for most of the trip on a downwind
passage in 10 -15 kts
wind was kinda bad for the ole lungs. We had to come up now and then just to get a breath of fresh air.
Other than that the trip was uneventful. We cleared into Cayman Brac then went on to Grand Cayman the next day. We anchored just off 7 mile beach and then jumped over and swam to a beach bar and started having a few beers when all of a sudden the Jamaican cook who wanted to stay on the boat started screaming and jumped
overboard and swan quickly to where we were. He was obviously very upset and stated emphatically that while he was preparing lunch the ghost of Donald Crowhurst came up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.........oh well maybe but it did take some coaching to get him back aboard.
That was the last time I heard anything from the owners of the boat
The boat has always been a fond memory and had ofter wondered what happened to the owners or the boat.
Many years later while on Grand Cayman I decided to fly over to Cayman Brac and try and find the owners because I had heard the boat ended up on the beach after a
Hurricane which I believe was in the mid to late 80's. Never could locate the owners however found the boat which was somewhat recognizable but very smashed yet you could still make out the name.
I felt very sad and had always hoped the boat could have been salvaged and put back together as a a tribute to a troubled man in his attempt to become someone he was not........RIP Donald.
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