You are of course refering to the The Teignmouth Electron 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.
In 1968, the British Sunday Times newspaper initiated a new sailing competition called The Golden Globe Race.The deceptively simple objective was to succeed in the first non-stop, solo circumnavigation of the earth. Thirty-four year-old Donald Crowhurst, an inventor, amateur yachtsman, and family man, decided to enter the race. Without a proper boat or open-sea experience, he set out to design and construct, from the ground up, a new and untested vessel.
With his effective persuasiveness and an exuberant passion, Crowhurst managed to convince various high-profile funders of his winning intentions even though his boating experience had been limited mostly to weekend pleasure sailing.
The Teignmouth Electron, (an amalgam of the British town Teighmouth who partially sponsored the boat’s construction, and Crowhurst’s own fledgling but failing electronics company, Electron Utilities) was “completed” just days before the race’s deadline, leaving testing and innumerable details incomplete. The boat was 200 percent over budget. On 31 October, 1968, the last day possible to begin the race, the Teignmouth Electron and Donald Crowhurst sailed into the Atlantic.
The boat immediately experienced problems. She took on water, fittings broke, the generator failed, and communication equipment was still unfinished. Design flaws made the Electron nearly impossible to steer, resulting in a bizarre and erratic zigzag sailing pattern. During Crowhurst’s 243 days at sea difficulties would continue to escalate.
At some point Crowhurst, sensing the project’s failure and unable to reconcile how this failure would affect him personally, financially, and professionally (his failing company was leveraging a portion of the cost) began faking an elaborate and faux-heroic course around the world. Crowhurst kept two logbooks: one detailed his innermost thoughts along with accurate readings of his journey; the other held forged entries of his imaginary progress around the world.
In July 1969, after providing false readings to the race organisers for months, Crowhurst learned that the other sailors had either dropped out of the race or that their boats had fallen apart mid-course, leaving the Teignmouth Electron in position to not just finish, but actually win the race. This was too much to bear and mental anguish set in. Crowhurst felt that his only escape was death. On 10 July, 1969, the Teignmouth Electron was found ghosting in the Atlantic, empty. The last logbook entry was dated 3 July. The boat was found in a state of disarray but contained in plain view his detailed logbooks outlining his grand lie as well as what he believed to be his ultimate life’s work - ideas written directly to humankind with “instructions” on attaining transcendence.
source wiki
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teignmouth_Electron
Interestingly there are similarities to Tracey Curtis Taylor.
To quote the Daily Mail expose...
Miss Curtis-Taylor’s website posted: ‘For the avoidance of doubt, I have always been the sole pilot of Spirit of Artemis.
‘In planning the expedition through Africa in 2013 there was an initial hope of a solo flight in the beautiful & original 1942 Boeing Stearman. However, in the early stages of the flight this concept was intentionally and officially dropped.’
Mr Gritsch admits he was in the forward cockpit for ‘the majority’ of the flights from Cape Town to Goodwood and Farnborough to Sydney. He said: ‘The situation was that it was not a solo flight.’
Sponsors Boeing and Artemis refused to comment and the BBC said it bought the documentary from production firm Nylon, who also declined to comment.
Read more:
'Solo' flying poster girl is brought down by claims that she had co-pilot | Daily Mail Online
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However Crowhurst was on his own trying to deceive the worlds media.
Tracey Curtis Taylor was part of a much broader public relations charade to convince the worlds media that the Spirit Of Artemis was being flown solo from Cape Town to Goodwood England by a woman who was "commemorating" the historic travels of Lady Mary Heath.
So having got all the sponsors on board and a tv crew making an independent documentary everyone suddenly discovered the terrible truth.
Tracey had never flown solo outside of familar local areas and her comfort zone.
Worse still she could not cope with the work load.
It was panic stations for the Artemis media advisor who had to some how rescue the situation. All this massive investment about to go down the plug hole.
Hence this
In planning the expedition through Africa in 2013 there was an initial hope of a solo flight in the beautiful & original 1942 Boeing Stearman. However, in the early stages of the flight this concept was intentionally and officially dropped.’
We never have had an explanation as to why it was dropped but Sam Rutherford and others I have spoken to claim she was not able to fly and navigate.
The answer was Ewald Gritsch who would fly the Spirit of Artemis while TCT was filmed as, to use her words.."the sole pilot".
It appears the trick worked so it was used again for the UK to Sydney 'Solo' trip.
I would like to say at this stage that Pprune have been excellent in not allowing this sorry story to be brushed under the carpet.
I understand the Spirit of Artemis is still tucked away in the Execujet hangar at Farnborough. Despite some superb UK flying weather TCT seems to have gone to ground.
Not much flying outreach going on
