Sunday Times Golden Globe Race - The Race - Rounding The Horn (26 December To 18 March)

Rounding The Horn (26 December To 18 March)

By January, concern was growing for Knox-Johnston. He was having problems with his radio transmitter and nothing had been heard since he had passed south of New Zealand. He was actually making good progress, rounding Cape Horn on 17 January 1969. Elated by this successful climax to his voyage, he briefly considered continuing east, to sail around the Southern Ocean a second time, but soon gave up the idea and turned north for home.

Crowhurst's deliberately vague position reporting was also causing consternation for the press, who were desperate for hard facts. On 19 January, he finally yielded to the pressure and stated himself to be 100 nautical miles (120 mi; 190 km) south-east of Gough Island in the south Atlantic. He also reported that due to generator problems he was shutting off his radio for some time. His position was misunderstood on the receiving end to be 100 nautical miles (190 km) south-east of the Cape of Good Hope; the high speed this erroneous position implied fuelled newspaper speculation in the following radio silence, and his position was optimistically reported as rapidly advancing around the globe. Crowhurst's actual position, meanwhile, was off Brazil, where he was making slow progress south, and carefully monitoring weather reports from around the world to include in his fake log. He was also becoming increasingly concerned about Teignmouth Electron, which was starting to come apart, mainly due to slapdash construction.

Moitessier also had not been heard from since New Zealand, but he was still making good progress and coping easily with the conditions of the "furious fifties". He was carrying letters from old Cape Horn sailors describing conditions in the Southern Ocean, and he frequently consulted these to get a feel for chances of encountering ice. He reached the Horn on 6 February, but when he started to contemplate the voyage back to Plymouth he realised that he was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the race concept.

As he sailed past the Falkland Islands he was sighted, and this first news of him since Tasmania caused considerable excitement. It was predicted that he would arrive home on 24 April as the winner (in fact, Knox-Johnston finished on 22 April). A huge reception was planned in Britain, from where he would be escorted to France by a fleet of French warships for an even more grand reception. There was even said to be a Légion d'honneur waiting for him there.

Moitessier had a very good idea of this, but throughout his voyage he had been developing an increasing disgust with the excesses of the modern world; the planned celebrations seemed to him to be yet another example of brash materialism. After much debate with himself, and many thoughts of those waiting for him in England, he decided to continue sailing — past the Cape of Good Hope, and across the Indian Ocean for a second time, into the Pacific. Unaware of this, the newspapers continued to publish "assumed" positions progressing steadily up the Atlantic, until, on 18 March, Moitessier fired a slingshot message in a can onto a ship near the shore of Cape Town, announcing his new plans to a stunned world:

On the same day, Tetley rounded Cape Horn, becoming the first to accomplish the feat in a multihull sailboat. Badly battered by his Southern Ocean voyage, he turned north with considerable relief.