Sir Francis Chichester

The Sunday Times reports* that two of its readers have saved Sir Francis Chichester's Gipsy Moth IV with a donation of £250,000. Chichester set the record for the fastest single-handed circumnavigation of the globe in 1967 but the current owners of the boat were ready to sell it overseas. The article states that the Sunday Times sponsored the record-breaking voyage and secured an aerial front-page picture of Gipsy Moth rounding Cape Horn. This is partly true but in fact the Guardian signed a contract jointly with the Sunday Times to take Chichester's copy by radio-telephone.

This method had been extremely successful in 1962 when Chichester had done a deal with the Guardian to relay daily accounts of life on his boat (Gipsy Moth III) while trying to beat his own time for single-handedly crossing the Atlantic.

JRL Anderson, who amongst many jobs was the paper's yachting editor, worked with the Marconi company to develop an experimental ship-to-shore radio system. Chichester's daily commentary - best described as an early form of blogging - covered the smallest details including the progress of a wounded pigeon that took refuge on the boat. Anderson later wrote:

Five years later and the collaboration was revived with the Guardian printing long reports of Chichester's voyage to Sydney. However, the contract only covered the outward journey and due to a financial crisis at the paper, there wasn't enough money to pay for the return leg. With its deeper pockets the Sunday Times was able to buy up exclusive rights to the voyage - a fortuitous move as this leg proved to be a lot more exciting than the outward one.

The Gipsy Moth IV buyers, who are keen sailors and live in East Anglia, were moved to step in after reading in The Sunday Times that the yacht was likely to go to an overseas buyer after being put up for sale because of crippling maintenance costs. They have negotiated a package that allows the yacht to stay with the United Kingdom Sailing Academy (UKSA), the charity that trains children and disabled people to sail. There is a pledge to cover the maintenance costs for at least five years and will also ensure that the yacht is put on public display several times a year.

*Article locked behind paywall. Access details here

Singlehanded across the Atlantic

Saturday's Daily Mail featured a story about Roz Savage who singlehandedly rowed across the Atlantic in 2006 and is now attempting to become the first woman to row solo across the Pacific. More information on her website.

Rowing across the Atlantic features in Those Who Dared, including the 1966 voyage of Chay Blyth and John Ridgway. My favourite story of adventurous crossings of the ocean though is that Alain Bombard who in 1952 undertook a single-handed sail-crossing from east to west in an inflatable dingy. His aim was to prove that a human being can survive for weeks if not months by drinking seawater and juice pressed from the flesh of fish.

Sixty-five days after leaving the Canary Islands he landed on a beach in Barbados. He was emaciated and anaemic but had proved that his body could stand up to a diet of raw fish and plankton, although he very nearly make it. Read more about his remarkable journey and life here.

The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst

There is yet another 'Best of' list of books to read, this time being Outside Magazine's The 10 Greatest Adventure Biographies. It's a wide-ranging collection featuring such diverse characters as Ernest Shackleton, Bruce Chatwin, Henry Morton Stanley and Marco Polo. And then there is Donald Crowhurst.

Donald Crowhurst was one of nine competitors who in June 1968 set out from Falmouth, England, on the Sunday Times Golden Globe, the world's first singlehanded nonstop round-the-world sailboat race. After battling with hurricanes and damaged equipment in a boat that many thought was unsuitable, the British sailor Robin Knox-Johnston was the only person to complete the race. His feat though was overshadowed by the bizarre journey of Crowhurst, who had secretly abandoned his attempt while reporting false positions in an attempt to claim the prize money without actually circling the globe, and then committed suicide. While he had designed marine navigation devices, it turned out that the man was in fact an inexperienced sailor who had bluffed his way into the event.

I always wanted to include the Crowhurst story in Those Who Dared but there was very little material about him in either the Guardian or the Observer. I eventually came across an excellent Malcolm Muggeridge review of The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall. For an in depth essay about the sailor, I'd recommend Geoff Powter's We Cannot Fail: The Dark Psychology of Heroic Adventure.

Dame Ellen MacArthur

Dame Ellen MacArthur is retiring from competitive sailing to concentrate on campaigning to save the environment. The yachtswoman, who at the age of 28 broke the record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe in 2005, announced on Desert Island Discs yesterday that a trip to the Atlantic island of South Georgia had made her acutely aware of the challenges facing the planet.

She will still sail for pleasure and to raise money for good causes such as her own child cancer charity.

Dame Ellen first came to the attention of the public in 2001 when she nearly won the Vendee Globe, the toughest race in the sailing world. For three months, MacArthur was on her own, skippering a 60ft yacht, that would ordinarily be crewed by 11 people, in the foulest conditions. She survived the freezing south Atlantic and the blistering hot tropics. As Bob Fisher noted in the Observer, her skill was not only as a sailor, but also as an engineer – dealing with sophisticated electronics and repairing sails and rigging.

North-West Passage

A story in last Saturday's Independent recounted how two sailors navigated the North-West Passage, the fabled sea route along the northern Canadian coast believed to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, in a 17-foot open sailing boat. Until very recently this journey would have been impossible as the way was clogged with thick ice. However, due to global warming, the route is nearly ice-free for the first time since records began.

Early European navigators sailed north into the Arctic during the 16th and 17th centuries in search of the passage. The British parliament offered £20,000 to the first person to complete the passage, in 1744, and over the following years expeditions gradually discovered parts of the Canadian Arctic archipelago as they pursued the prize. John Franklin, a veteran of arctic exploration, set out in 1845 on a well equipped north west passage expedition but when no news was heard from the crew, more than 40 parties were launched in search of them. Eventually is was discovered that the Franklin party had died from scurvy and starvation, along with evidence that the sailors had resorted to cannibalism - a fact reported with glee by the press.

According to polar historian, Beau Riffenburgh, in Myth of the Explorer, this marked the beginning of a sensational style of journalism that promoted and exaggerated exploits. Heroic myths were created to enthrall the general public, while less eventful, but more useful, scientific expeditions of the latter part of the 19th century were ignored.