A Voyage For Madmen by Peter Nichols Read Free Book Online Page A

1968 – for the fastest voyage. Thus, if the first man home won the Golden Globe simply because he had been the first to set out, there would still be an incentive for others to race home for the fastest time and the cash prize. Contestants were not even required to enter the race. Anybody setting out, sponsored or not, whose departure and arrival dates could be verified, would be eligible for the
Sunday Times
prizes. This way, no circumnavigator could
not
take part.
    The rules were simple and designed to embrace the various plans already afoot: competitors could leave from any port of their choice in the British Isles, on any date between 1 June and 31 October 1968. (To leave earlier or later could mean reaching the Southern Ocean and Cape Horn during the severer weather of the austral winter, and – in what would turn out to be its only such effort – the
Sunday Times
wanted to avoid encouraging undue risk.)
    The route was around the world ‘by way of the three capes’, in clipper ship parlance: the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa; Cape Leeuwin, Australia; and South America’s notorious Cape Horn. Competitors would sail alone, without stopping or putting in at any port, without assistance or resupply. And they would return to their port of origin.
    To give lustre and authority to its self-appointed interest, the
Sunday Times
quickly put together a panel of judges, made up of heavyweights from the world of yachting, with Sir Francis Chichester as its chairman.

    With plans for a circumnavigating yacht drawn up for him by Colin Mudie, Robin Knox-Johnston went looking for a quote from a builder. The design, 53 feet long, simple and lightweight, though to be built of steel, was of such unusual construction that most boatyards either refused to quote at all or put him off with outlandishly high figures. He finally found a barge-building yard on the River Thames that quoted £2,800 for the hull, and even appeared interested in the project. This price meant the possibility of a complete boat ready to sail for around £5,000, which was cheap.

    Around the World by Way of the Three Capes
    But Knox-Johnston had no money at all. By the end of 1967, he had written over fifty letters to firms and businesses seeking sponsorship, and those who replied had all declined.
Suhaili
, his only asset, was still up for sale, but roughly built and old-fashioned, she was few people’s idea of a proper yacht, and there had been no takers.
    Yet he had made up his mind to go. Increasingly his thoughts turned to
Suhaili
, the boat he had sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and across 10,000 miles of ocean. Between professional stints at sea, he had lived aboard her for two years. He knew her, she was a proven vessel – and she was available.
    She would need a refit, new sails, new rigging, some sort of self-steering gear, and he would have to load her with a year’s supply of food – but all this seemed possible. He turned his back firmly on the sleeker pipe dream and decided to go ahead with
Suhaili
. He would find the money for what he needed where he could.
    George Greenfield, a London literary agent, thought there might be a book in Knox-Johnston’s voyage. Greenfield specialised in adventurers – the newly knighted Sir Francis Chichester was one of his clients, as was British explorer Wally Herbert, who was then putting together the British transarctic expedition, a sledge-hauling crossing of the Arctic icecap by way of the North Pole. Greenfield thought he saw the same stuff in the young merchant seaman. He might be unknown in yachting circles, but he had sailed his boat home from India, and Greenfield was excited about the idea of his nonstop circumnavigation. He told Knox-Johnston to get on with his preparations.
    Early in 1968 Greenfield sold the book rights to Knox-Johnston’svoyage to the London publisher Cassell. This brought an advance payment of enough money for
Suhaili
’s