# The Philosopher and the Handyman: The Race Around the World - Part 1

An episode of [Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1484511465), 20 Feb 2026, 39 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/18db03/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/c3676c38-b712-443c-8c77-b3f601060dab/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

Who will be the first to sail non-stop around the world? In 1968, The Sunday Times announces a trophy and a cash prize for the winner, and the Golden Globe Race is on. Leading the charge are Robin Knox-Johnston, an old-fashioned British patriot, and Bernard Moitessier, an enigmatic French philosopher. As monstrous seas and deadly gales close in, the difference between victory and disaster will come down to just one word. For a full list of show notes, see timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin.
[0:23] Speaker 2: On a warm summer's day, somewhere near the Cape Verde
[0:26] Speaker 2: Islands off the coast of Africa, Robin Knocks Johnston puts
[0:31] Speaker 2: on a mask and a snorkel and jumps from the
[0:34] Speaker 2: side of his yacht into a calm sea. It sounds idyllic,
[0:40] Speaker 2: but Knocks Johnston isn't diving for fun. He's investigating why
[0:46] Speaker 2: his boat has been leaking. You expect some water in
[0:49] Speaker 2: the bilge, but not this much. He's been having to
[0:53] Speaker 2: run the pumps twice a day. Five feet below the waterline.
[0:58] Speaker 2: He sees the problem. Two wooden planks are coming slightly apart.
[1:04] Speaker 2: A long, thin gap has opened up between them. As
[1:10] Speaker 2: the boat bobs gently in the ocean, the gap opens
[1:15] Speaker 2: and closes, opens and closes. It's no big deal. Every
[1:22] Speaker 2: boat needs patching up from time to time. In an
[1:26] Speaker 2: ideal world, Knox Johnston would simply have the boat lifted
[1:29] Speaker 2: out of water when he's next at port and fill
[1:32] Speaker 2: the gap with corking cotton picture a thick piece of string.
[1:37] Speaker 2: But he can't head for a port because Robin Knox
[1:41] Speaker 2: Johnston is competing for the Sunday Times Golden Globe. The
[1:46] Speaker 2: year is nineteen sixty eight the challenge sail around the
[1:51] Speaker 2: world single handed without stopping. It's never been done before.
[1:58] Speaker 2: Knox Johnston will have to repair the gap right here
[2:02] Speaker 2: in the middle of the sea, under water, on his own.
[2:08] Speaker 2: But how he ties a hammer to a rope and
[2:13] Speaker 2: dangles it overboard. He twists a length of cotton, dives
[2:18] Speaker 2: under the water, hammers it into the gap, and comes
[2:22] Speaker 2: up for air. But by the time he dives back down,
[2:27] Speaker 2: the cotton has worked its way loose.
[2:30] Speaker 3: After half an hour fruitless effort, I climb back on
[2:34] Speaker 3: board and tried to think of some other way of
[2:37] Speaker 3: doing the job.
[2:40] Speaker 2: Knox Johnston expects his round the World voyage to take
[2:43] Speaker 2: about ten months. He's barely a month in so far.
[2:49] Speaker 2: He sailed south from Britain past half of Africa. He
[2:53] Speaker 2: still has to pass the rest of Africa and turn
[2:56] Speaker 2: left into the Southern Ocean under Australia and New Zealand
[3:01] Speaker 2: and round the bottom of South America, the dreaded Cape Horn,
[3:05] Speaker 2: where waves can tower like skyscrapers. He can't do that
[3:12] Speaker 2: with a gap between his planks. He drinks a coffee,
[3:16] Speaker 2: smokes a cigarette and thinks what if he sows the
[3:22] Speaker 2: cotton to a long strip of canvas.
[3:26] Speaker 3: I gave it a coating of Stockholm tar and then
[3:29] Speaker 3: forced copper tacks through the canvas about six inches apart.
[3:34] Speaker 2: He'll hammer in the tacks so the canvas holds the
[3:37] Speaker 2: cotton in place, then cover the canvas with a sheet
[3:41] Speaker 2: of copper to stop it ripping loose. But just as
[3:45] Speaker 2: he's about to dive in again, he sees a dark
[3:49] Speaker 2: gray shape under the surface near to the boat. A shark.
[3:55] Speaker 2: Good job, he noticed.
[3:57] Speaker 3: I got out my rifle, aimed at the shape and
[4:01] Speaker 3: squeezed the trigger.
[4:06] Speaker 2: I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales. Sailing
[4:35] Speaker 2: around the world single handed was nothing new. It had
[4:38] Speaker 2: first been done in the nineteenth century, though with lots
[4:42] Speaker 2: of stops along the way to fix up problems, get
[4:46] Speaker 2: supplies and enjoy some human company. In nineteen sixty seven,
[4:51] Speaker 2: a British sailor completed a solo round the world trip
[4:55] Speaker 2: with just one stop in Australia that had never been
[5:00] Speaker 2: done before, and it caught the imagination of the British newspapers.
[5:07] Speaker 2: Over breakfast in the not Johnston household, Robin's dad wondered
[5:12] Speaker 2: when someone would try to sail round the world without
[5:16] Speaker 2: stopping at all. That's about all there's left to do now,
[5:19] Speaker 2: isn't it, he casually remarked to Robin.
[5:23] Speaker 3: He got up and left for the office, leaving me
[5:26] Speaker 3: stirring a cup of coffee and thinking that's about all
[5:30] Speaker 3: there's left to do now kept turning in my mind.
[5:37] Speaker 2: Robin Knocks Johnston was a young man, just twenty eight
[5:41] Speaker 2: years old, but he was no flower powered child of
[5:44] Speaker 2: the sixties. He was conventional, an officer with the British
[5:49] Speaker 2: India Steam Navigation Company, a church goer and a patriot.
[5:55] Speaker 3: The thought of generations of Britons and their achievements always
[5:58] Speaker 3: encourages me. Most nations have a book full of heroes,
[6:02] Speaker 3: but I always feel that Britain has a greater share
[6:06] Speaker 3: than most.
[6:08] Speaker 2: As he stirs his coffee and contemplates the place in
[6:12] Speaker 2: the history books that awaits the first person to sail
[6:15] Speaker 2: non stop around the world, a horrible thought praise on
[6:20] Speaker 2: his mind. What if it's a Frenchman that would be galling?
[6:28] Speaker 2: By rights, a Britain should do it first, and well
[6:35] Speaker 2: why not him? Knox Johnston was an experienced sailor. He
[6:40] Speaker 2: already had a boat, He had it built in India.
[6:43] Speaker 2: When based there with his work, he'd seen a design
[6:46] Speaker 2: he liked and sent off to a British company for
[6:48] Speaker 2: the plans, But there'd been a mix up and they'd
[6:51] Speaker 2: sent him plans for a different boat, more old fashioned
[6:55] Speaker 2: and slow. Still, this design looked solid and reliable, so
[7:01] Speaker 2: Knox Johnston shrugged and gave the plans to his Indian
[7:05] Speaker 2: boat builders. Solid, reliable, a bit old fashioned. Quite by accident,
[7:13] Speaker 2: Robin Knox Johnston had ended up with a boat that
[7:16] Speaker 2: was very much like him. He had sailed it from
[7:19] Speaker 2: India back to England. Now he began to wonder if
[7:23] Speaker 2: he could sail it around the world on his own
[7:27] Speaker 2: non stop. Other sailors were also asking themselves could I
[7:39] Speaker 2: Editors at the British newspaper The Sunday Times had a
[7:43] Speaker 2: bright idea. They announced that the first person to sail
[7:48] Speaker 2: non stop around the world would win a trophy, the
[7:52] Speaker 2: Sunday Times Golden Globe. If sailors were going to be
[7:56] Speaker 2: competing anyway, why not attach the newspaper's name to it
[8:00] Speaker 2: and get some free publicity. It was a stroke of
[8:04] Speaker 2: marketing genius, But that wasn't all as well as a
[8:08] Speaker 2: trophy for the first person around the world. They announced
[8:12] Speaker 2: a large cash prize for the fastest. That was clever,
[8:17] Speaker 2: it would keep up public interest even after the trophy
[8:20] Speaker 2: had been won. The rules were simple. Set off from
[8:25] Speaker 2: a British port between June and October of nineteen sixty eight.
[8:30] Speaker 2: Whoever got back to their port of departure in the
[8:32] Speaker 2: least amount of time would get five thousand pounds maybe
[8:37] Speaker 2: a quarter million dollars in today's money. Not to be
[8:41] Speaker 2: sniffed at. Robin Knox. Johnston knew he hadn't a hope
[8:47] Speaker 2: of winning the cash prize for being fastest. His boat
[8:51] Speaker 2: was slow, but maybe he had a chance of being
[8:55] Speaker 2: first if he set off at the earliest possible moment,
[9:00] Speaker 2: right at the start of June.
[9:03] Speaker 1: That was a risk.
[9:04] Speaker 2: Ideally, you wanted to time your journey so you'd be
[9:07] Speaker 2: in the fearsome Southern Ocean during the southern summer, when
[9:12] Speaker 2: the weather should be a little less wild. Other sailors
[9:15] Speaker 2: with faster boats were rumored to be planning a later departure.
[9:20] Speaker 2: Among them was Bernard Motessier, a Frenchman, and not just
[9:27] Speaker 2: any Frenchman. Mosier was already famous for his long, distant
[9:32] Speaker 2: sailing exploits and the best selling books he wrote about them,
[9:37] Speaker 2: books of philosophy distinctly French philosophy, the kind of lines
[9:43] Speaker 2: that make you imagine smoking a gloise at a Parisian
[9:46] Speaker 2: street cafe.
[9:48] Speaker 4: You do not ask a tame sea girl why it
[9:51] Speaker 4: needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea.
[9:56] Speaker 3: It goes, that's all.
[9:59] Speaker 4: And it is as simple as a ray of sunshine,
[10:03] Speaker 4: as normal as the blue of the sky.
[10:08] Speaker 2: It wasn't clear if the tame seagull Mortessier had heard
[10:12] Speaker 2: about the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, because rumor had
[10:16] Speaker 2: it that he was planning to set off from a
[10:18] Speaker 2: port in France. The Sunday Time sent a reporter to
[10:22] Speaker 2: explain to him about the trophy and the cash prize,
[10:26] Speaker 2: but how the rules said you had to start from
[10:28] Speaker 2: a British port. Motessier listened, growing more and more incensed.
[10:36] Speaker 2: The very idea, he said made him want to vomit.
[10:41] Speaker 4: I disapprove of a risk. It makes you lose sight
[10:46] Speaker 4: of the essential. A voyage to your own utter limits,
[10:51] Speaker 4: this search for a profound truth with as sole witnesses
[10:55] Speaker 4: the sea, the wind, the boat, the infinitely big, the
[11:01] Speaker 4: infinitely small.
[11:06] Speaker 2: This was a problem for the Sunday Times. If Whatessier
[11:10] Speaker 2: was first around the world, it would look a bit
[11:13] Speaker 2: silly to give their trophy to someone else. They decided
[11:16] Speaker 2: to change their rules to allow competitors to set off
[11:20] Speaker 2: from French ports too. But before they could change the rules,
[11:24] Speaker 2: Whatessier changed his mind. Even philosophers need to eat, and
[11:30] Speaker 2: the cash prize was tempting.
[11:34] Speaker 4: Money malus, Yes, money, more or less money is necessary.
[11:40] Speaker 1: He now had a new plan.
[11:42] Speaker 2: He'd sail from France to a British port, then sail
[11:46] Speaker 2: fastest around the world and pocket the cash prize, but
[11:50] Speaker 2: show his contempt for The Sunday Times by refusing to
[11:53] Speaker 2: pose for photos or give an interview.
[11:57] Speaker 4: The rules did not specify that we had to say
[12:00] Speaker 4: thank you.
[12:02] Speaker 2: Maybe he'd even catch Robin Knox Johnston in his much
[12:05] Speaker 2: slower boat. Then he could pick up the trophy without
[12:08] Speaker 2: saying thank you too. Cautionary tales will be back after
[12:16] Speaker 2: the break. What was the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race about?
[12:28] Speaker 1: Really?
[12:30] Speaker 2: Was it seamanship, endurance, mental fortitude? The writer Stuart Brand
[12:39] Speaker 2: has a more prosaic ancer. The race was about maintenance.
[12:46] Speaker 2: Robin Knox Johnston knew he had no hope of winning
[12:49] Speaker 2: the cash prize for being fastest around the world. To
[12:53] Speaker 2: stand a chance of winning the trophy for being first,
[12:56] Speaker 2: he had to set off at the earliest possible moment,
[13:00] Speaker 2: even though his boat was leaking and it wasn't obvious
[13:03] Speaker 2: from where he'd just had to figure it all out.
[13:05] Speaker 2: As he sailed along in the harbor and Falmouth, he
[13:10] Speaker 2: piled on board everything he could imagine needing for maintenance
[13:14] Speaker 2: on the go.
[13:16] Speaker 5: One ball, corking cotton, one set corking chisels, twelve yards canvas,
[13:22] Speaker 5: seven pounds Stockholm tar, seven pounds marine glue, eighteen tins
[13:26] Speaker 5: flexible seam stopper.
[13:27] Speaker 2: On went every kind of tool and spare part he
[13:32] Speaker 2: could conceive of. By the time he had finished, the
[13:35] Speaker 2: boat was sitting two inches lower in the water, but
[13:39] Speaker 2: it meant that when the leak got really serious somewhere
[13:43] Speaker 2: near Cape Verde, Knox Johnston had a floating hardware store
[13:48] Speaker 2: to draw on as he drank his coffee, smoked his cigarette,
[13:53] Speaker 2: and contemplated what to do. In his book Maintenance of Everything,
[14:02] Speaker 2: Stewart Brand commends Knox Johnston for taking his time. Skilled
[14:06] Speaker 2: maintainers advise never trying to a new or complex problem
[14:11] Speaker 2: without a thorough mulling first. Of course, skilled maintainers don't
[14:18] Speaker 2: usually have to shoot a shark before they can affect
[14:21] Speaker 2: their solution.
[14:23] Speaker 3: I squeezed the trigger. There was an explosion in the
[14:26] Speaker 3: water as the shark's body thrust around, but within half
[14:30] Speaker 3: a minute the threshing ceased and the lifeless body began
[14:33] Speaker 3: slowly to plane down until it disappeared into the blue.
[14:40] Speaker 2: Knox Johnston waited for a while to check no other
[14:44] Speaker 2: sharks were lurking, then jumped into the sea, dived under
[14:49] Speaker 2: water and hammered in the canvas and the copper sheet.
[14:54] Speaker 3: The leaking into the boat almost stopped completely.
[14:59] Speaker 2: Maintenance Knox Johnston sailed on. Bernard Mortessier sailed from France
[15:08] Speaker 2: to a British port and made his final preparations. His
[15:13] Speaker 2: approach was the opposite of Robin Knox Johnston's. Instead of
[15:18] Speaker 2: piling on board anything he might need, he wanted to
[15:21] Speaker 2: get rid of everything he could do without.
[15:25] Speaker 4: I unloaded engine and go winch dingy all unnecessary charts,
[15:31] Speaker 4: a suitcase full of books, four anchors, spare zinc anodes,
[15:36] Speaker 4: nine hundred pounds of chain, and all of the tins
[15:39] Speaker 4: of paint. Incredible the amount of spare equipment a sailboard
[15:44] Speaker 4: can carry masses of improbable bits of gear.
[15:50] Speaker 2: The Sunday Times tried to persuade him to take a
[15:52] Speaker 2: bulky radio on board like the other sailors, so he
[15:55] Speaker 2: could keep them updated on his progress. What Tessiers said not.
[16:01] Speaker 2: He was trying to get rid of stuff, not add
[16:04] Speaker 2: to it. If he wanted to communicate with the world,
[16:07] Speaker 2: he'd do it how he always had when sailing alone.
[16:10] Speaker 2: Wait till he encountered a ship, scribble a message, put
[16:14] Speaker 2: it in a small container, and catapult it in their direction.
[16:19] Speaker 4: A good sling shot is worth all the transmitters in
[16:23] Speaker 4: the world.
[16:26] Speaker 2: Whatsier set sail in August sixty nine, days after Robin
[16:32] Speaker 2: Knox Johnston. But on his bigger and now much lighter boat,
[16:36] Speaker 2: he'd surely go faster. The tame seagull was in his element.
[16:43] Speaker 2: No radio, no baggage, alone.
[16:49] Speaker 4: Wind sea, boot and sails, a compact, diffuse hole without
[16:55] Speaker 4: beginning or end a part and all of the universe,
[16:59] Speaker 4: my own universe, truly mine.
[17:06] Speaker 2: How do they spend their days? That's not knowing how
[17:11] Speaker 2: quickly the one is catching the other Knocks Johnston Potters.
[17:16] Speaker 2: Doing maintenance, I cleaned out the engine built.
[17:20] Speaker 3: I took some of the corking compound and rammed it
[17:22] Speaker 3: into the holes in the forward hatch.
[17:24] Speaker 1: And what I see.
[17:26] Speaker 4: I watched the sunset and inhale the breath of the
[17:30] Speaker 4: open sea. I feel my being blossoming, and my joy
[17:34] Speaker 4: soars so high that nothing can disturb it.
[17:39] Speaker 3: I refilled the charger and continued boosting the batteries.
[17:43] Speaker 4: A flying fish shoot straight up in a twenty foot
[17:46] Speaker 4: leap into the air.
[17:47] Speaker 3: I went over the rigging with a mixture of white
[17:49] Speaker 3: leaden tallow.
[17:51] Speaker 4: A huge barracuda takes off after it and snatches the
[17:55] Speaker 4: flying fish at the top.
[17:56] Speaker 3: Of the arc. I gave the cabin a good scrubb up.
[18:00] Speaker 4: I felt sorry for the little one, but was so
[18:02] Speaker 4: struck by the terrible beauty that I let out the
[18:05] Speaker 4: big ah.
[18:13] Speaker 2: Knox Johnstone is clobbered by a massive way. Then water
[18:18] Speaker 2: starts to seep alarmingly into the cabin.
[18:22] Speaker 3: I discovered that there were ominous cracks all around the
[18:25] Speaker 3: edge of the cabin. I got out my box of
[18:28] Speaker 3: bodnuts and screws and selected the longest box and heaviest
[18:31] Speaker 3: screws in order to try to reinforce the cabin top fastenings.
[18:36] Speaker 3: The job kept me busy all day.
[18:39] Speaker 2: Marti meanwhile, is communing with the sea birds.
[18:43] Speaker 4: I offer them my cheese and friendship. With time and patience,
[18:50] Speaker 4: one comes to eat out of my hand. They raised
[18:54] Speaker 4: their heads toward me, cocking them to one side, giving
[18:57] Speaker 4: a barely audible little cry, as if they were trying
[19:01] Speaker 4: to say that they liked me too.
[19:06] Speaker 2: And the porpoises. On a foggy day, two dozen porpoises
[19:12] Speaker 2: swim alongside Whatesier's boat in a straight line. Then they
[19:19] Speaker 2: all suddenly turn ninety degrees to the right. Then they
[19:23] Speaker 2: line up again alongside the boat and again make a
[19:28] Speaker 2: sharp turn to the right. Whatesier watches puzzle.
[19:33] Speaker 3: They seem nervous. I do not understand what.
[19:38] Speaker 2: Tessier checks his compass. The wind has shifted and he
[19:43] Speaker 2: hasn't realized he'd set his course to pass a rocky island,
[19:47] Speaker 2: but now he's heading straight towards it. To miss the rocks,
[19:52] Speaker 2: he has to turn to the right, just as the
[19:55] Speaker 2: porpoises have been doing. As he turns his boat.
[20:00] Speaker 4: Something wonderful happens. A big black and white porpoise jumps
[20:05] Speaker 4: ten or twelve feet in the air in a fantastic summer,
[20:10] Speaker 4: bursting with a tremendous joy, as if you were shouting.
[20:14] Speaker 4: The man understood, you understood.
[20:27] Speaker 1: Robin knocks.
[20:28] Speaker 2: Johnston thought he'd put on board everything he could possibly
[20:32] Speaker 2: need to make repairs as he went along.
[20:35] Speaker 1: He was wrong.
[20:36] Speaker 2: No one can think of everything, but a master maintainer
[20:41] Speaker 2: is ingenious at finding solutions with whatever he has to hand.
[20:46] Speaker 2: When his radio transmitter breaks, for example, Knocks Johnston takes
[20:51] Speaker 2: it apart and sees that a wire is corroded.
[20:56] Speaker 3: My problem was how to reconnect it effectively, as I
[20:59] Speaker 3: had no solder. In the end, I broke three of
[21:02] Speaker 3: my navigation light bulbs and melted down the scraps of
[21:05] Speaker 3: solder from the terminals.
[21:07] Speaker 2: When his battery stops working, he strips it down and
[21:11] Speaker 2: rebuilds it. Then realizes he's forgotten to bring a feeler gauge,
[21:18] Speaker 2: a tool that lets you set a very precise gap
[21:21] Speaker 2: between two points in a spark plug. He needs to
[21:25] Speaker 2: set the gap at fifteen thousandths of an inch. How
[21:30] Speaker 2: on earth can he measure such a tiny distance. He
[21:35] Speaker 2: looks around the boat for anything that might help the
[21:39] Speaker 2: log book. He counts the pages.
[21:43] Speaker 3: There are two hundred to the inch. Therefore one page
[21:46] Speaker 3: equals five thousandths, thus three thicknesses of paper.
[21:53] Speaker 1: It works. The charger's fixed.
[21:57] Speaker 2: But for all his ingenuity and maintenance, Knox Johnston can't
[22:01] Speaker 2: control the winds.
[22:04] Speaker 3: Come on, God, give me a bloody break. It's been
[22:08] Speaker 3: nothing but calm or gales for weeks. How about some
[22:11] Speaker 3: steady winds for a change.
[22:14] Speaker 2: He's painfully aware that his boat is smaller and slower
[22:18] Speaker 2: than Bernard Martessiers. And because Mortier refused to take a radio,
[22:24] Speaker 2: nobody has a clue where he is not knowing. He
[22:28] Speaker 2: eats away at Knox Johnston.
[22:31] Speaker 3: I'll bet the Frenchman is having beautiful westerlies. What the
[22:36] Speaker 3: hell is wrong with the.
[22:37] Speaker 1: Bloody weather anyway?
[22:40] Speaker 2: And Motier the Frenchman is thinking that he hadn't been
[22:45] Speaker 2: ruthless enough in port when he cleared out unwanted baggage.
[22:50] Speaker 2: He's brought too much food and fuel. He starts lobbing
[22:54] Speaker 2: stuff overboard.
[22:58] Speaker 4: The box of army biscuits, a case of condensed milk,
[23:02] Speaker 4: about thirty bounds of a jam. I don't like a
[23:07] Speaker 4: coil of nylon line. Kerosine gets the same treatment. I
[23:11] Speaker 4: took more than I needed heavo for Jerry Cans hit
[23:17] Speaker 4: the drink.
[23:18] Speaker 2: Ah What, by the way, was an avid environmentalist in
[23:24] Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, nobody had yet realized that ocean pollution
[23:29] Speaker 2: was a thing to worry about. As for the race,
[23:33] Speaker 2: whatier is philosophical?
[23:37] Speaker 4: If we are indeed racing, I do not feel that
[23:41] Speaker 4: it is against other sailors and other boats.
[23:45] Speaker 2: As he rounds the Cape of Good Hope, what passes
[23:50] Speaker 2: a ship and sling shots some message at them? Knox
[23:55] Speaker 2: Johnston is passing New Zealand when he hears the news
[23:58] Speaker 2: of when and Whatia was, And when he's still ahead,
[24:04] Speaker 2: what is closing? At the rates they've sailed so far,
[24:09] Speaker 2: the race to be first is neck and neck. The
[24:12] Speaker 2: two are on course to arrive back in Britain at
[24:16] Speaker 2: just the same time. Er will surely get the cash.
[24:22] Speaker 2: Knox Johnston could still win the trophy and secure the
[24:27] Speaker 2: place in the history books for the British, not the French.
[24:32] Speaker 3: That was just the sort of news I needed to
[24:35] Speaker 3: spy me.
[24:36] Speaker 2: On cautionary tales will be back in a moment. In
[24:48] Speaker 2: his book Maintenance of Everything, Stuart Brand wants to convince
[24:53] Speaker 2: us to pay more attention to this unsexy subject. Maintenance,
[24:59] Speaker 2: he points out, is what keeps everything going. But it's
[25:04] Speaker 2: also a tiresome chare brush the damn teeth, change the
[25:09] Speaker 2: dam oil, And so says Brand, we shirk it, defer it,
[25:15] Speaker 2: fail to budget time or money for it, and we
[25:20] Speaker 2: pay the price when one day the thing we should
[25:23] Speaker 2: have been maintaining suddenly fails. Robin Knox Johnston was brilliant
[25:30] Speaker 2: at maintenance, but so was Bernard Martier in his way.
[25:36] Speaker 2: He writes about it in his book Tucked Away in
[25:39] Speaker 2: an appendix of practical advice so different from the philosophizing
[25:44] Speaker 2: that you'd hardly guess it's the same author.
[25:47] Speaker 4: A complete dock's annode treatment is often as good as
[25:50] Speaker 4: hot dip galvanizing, but the steel must always be sun
[25:54] Speaker 4: blasted first or thoroughly cleaned with a product of the
[25:58] Speaker 4: rust killer type if the doc's alloyed is to hold well.
[26:03] Speaker 2: Martesier's philosophy of maintenance is simple, minimize the knee for it.
[26:10] Speaker 2: His boat is made from steel, not wood.
[26:13] Speaker 3: That makes it absolutely water tight.
[26:18] Speaker 2: You won't find what Essier diving overboard and dodging sharks
[26:23] Speaker 2: to fix gaps in planks. Of course, steel will rust
[26:28] Speaker 2: given time, but that's what Whatier's practical advice is about,
[26:34] Speaker 2: exactly which treatments to apply, which paints, how many coats
[26:39] Speaker 2: in which order, so you can do things like sail
[26:42] Speaker 2: around the world without feeling the need to take your
[26:45] Speaker 2: tins of paint with you. Whatier refused the offer of
[26:50] Speaker 2: a radio, one less thing to go wrong. Indeed, he
[26:55] Speaker 2: saw no need for any electronics on board at all.
[26:59] Speaker 2: That meant no need for charging batteries. All those problems
[27:04] Speaker 2: that Robin Knox Johnston had to grapple with were problems
[27:07] Speaker 2: that simply couldn't occur on Whatessier's boat.
[27:12] Speaker 4: Given a choice between something simple and something complicated, choose
[27:16] Speaker 4: what is simple without hesitation. Sooner or later what is
[27:20] Speaker 4: complicated will almost always lead to problems.
[27:27] Speaker 2: Robin Knox Johnston sailed on from New Zealand, where he'd
[27:31] Speaker 2: heard the news that the race with Martessier was neck
[27:34] Speaker 2: and neck.
[27:36] Speaker 3: I did not dare risk wasting a single hour if
[27:39] Speaker 3: I wanted to beat him home.
[27:42] Speaker 2: The Southern Ocean stretched ahead again, thousands of lonely miles
[27:48] Speaker 2: to Cape Horn, the tip of South America. It might
[27:51] Speaker 2: be summer in the southern hemisphere, but still the waves
[27:55] Speaker 2: were fierce. One crashed over the boat while the hatch
[28:01] Speaker 2: to the cabin was still open, drenching every day.
[28:06] Speaker 3: I had to sleep wet for three days as I
[28:08] Speaker 3: could not put things out to dry, and my efforts
[28:11] Speaker 3: to drive the sleeping bag over the heater failed.
[28:18] Speaker 2: On Christmas Eve, Knocks Johnston knocked back whiskey and belted
[28:22] Speaker 2: out carols at the top of his voice, even if
[28:27] Speaker 2: he couldn't.
[28:28] Speaker 1: Remember all the words. Friend made.
[28:37] Speaker 2: Christmas Day brought news on the radio of the Apollo
[28:40] Speaker 2: eight mission, the first human spaceflight to orbit the Moon.
[28:46] Speaker 2: They were similar in a way, men in a small
[28:50] Speaker 2: vessel far from home, doing something that no one had
[28:54] Speaker 2: done before. In other ways not similar at all.
[29:00] Speaker 3: The contrasts between their magnificent effort and my own trip
[29:04] Speaker 3: were appalling. I was doing absolutely nothing to advance scientific acknowledge.
[29:10] Speaker 3: I was sailing around the world simply because I bloody
[29:13] Speaker 3: well wanted to.
[29:15] Speaker 2: Knox Johnston paused, feeling maudlin, and only for a moment,
[29:22] Speaker 2: and I.
[29:23] Speaker 3: Realized I was thoroughly enjoying myself.
[29:29] Speaker 2: At last, Knox Johnston rounded Cape Horn, The fearsome Southern.
[29:34] Speaker 1: Ocean was behind him.
[29:36] Speaker 2: The last leg of the journey back north up the
[29:39] Speaker 2: Atlantic should now be much more straightforward that Knox Johnston
[29:45] Speaker 2: surprised himself.
[29:48] Speaker 3: My first impulse on rounding the Horn was to keep
[29:51] Speaker 3: on going east. The feeling of having got past the
[29:54] Speaker 3: worst was terrific. And I suppose this impulse was a
[29:57] Speaker 3: way of cocking a snook at the Southern Ocean itself,
[30:00] Speaker 3: almost as if to say, I've beaten you, and now
[30:03] Speaker 3: I'll go round again to prove it.
[30:07] Speaker 2: But this temptation to keep on going round the Southern
[30:10] Speaker 2: Ocean again soon passed.
[30:14] Speaker 3: I thought of hot baths, pints of beer, the other sex,
[30:19] Speaker 3: and steaks, and turned up into the Atlantic.
[30:22] Speaker 4: For home.
[30:27] Speaker 2: January February March April. Nearly home. But where was more Tessier?
[30:39] Speaker 2: Was he still lying? Had he pulled in front already?
[30:42] Speaker 2: Who was going to win?
[30:46] Speaker 1: Just a week and.
[30:47] Speaker 2: A half from Falmouth, the port he had left nine
[30:50] Speaker 2: months before. Knox Johnston finally gets Newsessier is out of
[30:58] Speaker 2: the race. Bernard Whitessier sales past Cape Horn in a
[31:06] Speaker 2: philosophical mood.
[31:09] Speaker 4: A great cape can't be expressed in longitude and latitude alone.
[31:15] Speaker 4: A great cape has his soul, a soul as smooth
[31:20] Speaker 4: as a child's, as hard as a criminals.
[31:26] Speaker 2: What Tessier comes to a realization he doesn't want to
[31:32] Speaker 2: go back to Europe. He wants to keep going round
[31:36] Speaker 2: the Southern Ocean once again, and then somewhere Tahiti, somewhere simple,
[31:44] Speaker 2: far from the snake pit of so called Western civilization.
[31:49] Speaker 2: The monster that is the modern world.
[31:53] Speaker 4: It is destroying our earth and trampling the soul of men.
[32:01] Speaker 2: There is the slight complication that Motier has a wife
[32:05] Speaker 2: in France and stepchildren.
[32:08] Speaker 4: I do not know how to explain to them. How
[32:12] Speaker 4: could they understand? It can't be explained in words. It
[32:16] Speaker 4: would be completely useless to try.
[32:20] Speaker 2: What Tessier had chucked overboard everything he decided he didn't
[32:25] Speaker 2: need a coil of nylon line, the jam he didn't
[32:28] Speaker 2: like for jerry cans of kerosene. Now his marriage gets
[32:35] Speaker 2: the same treatment. Heave hope Whatessier sails on towards the
[32:44] Speaker 2: southern tip of Africa for the second time. On his journey,
[32:49] Speaker 2: he encounters a ship off the Cape of Good Hope
[32:53] Speaker 2: and slingshots them a message to pass on to the
[32:56] Speaker 2: Sunday Times.
[32:58] Speaker 4: I am continuing NonStop towards the Pacific Islands because I
[33:03] Speaker 4: am happy at sea, and perhaps also to save my soul.
[33:11] Speaker 2: Robin knocks Johnston sails back into Falmouth Harbor, the first
[33:17] Speaker 2: man ever to sail non stop around the world. Helicopters,
[33:23] Speaker 2: hover camera, cruz film, crowds wave and cheer. A Canon
[33:30] Speaker 2: finds there's the formality of a question from the Falmouth
[33:35] Speaker 2: Harbor customs officer, though he can hardly keep a straight
[33:39] Speaker 2: face as he asks it.
[33:40] Speaker 1: Whoe're from? Knocks Johnston grins Falmouth.
[33:48] Speaker 2: Robin Knocks Johnston has added his name to Britain's Book
[33:52] Speaker 2: Full of Heroes. But when someone suggests that the Frenchman
[33:58] Speaker 2: must have been mad to give up his chance of glory,
[34:02] Speaker 2: Knocks Johnston shakes his head.
[34:06] Speaker 3: I said I knew and understood what he did, and
[34:09] Speaker 3: that he didn't need to explain it. I said to people, no,
[34:13] Speaker 3: Whattessier is not mad. I had quite similar urges.
[34:21] Speaker 2: Later, Knox Johnston gets an envelope to the mail postmarked Tahiti.
[34:28] Speaker 2: Bernard Mortier has read about what Knox Johnston said and
[34:32] Speaker 2: written to thank him.
[34:34] Speaker 3: I got a lovely, charming letter.
[34:43] Speaker 2: As for Moesier, he leaps to Knox Johnston's defense. Whenever
[34:48] Speaker 2: anyone suggests that the Britain only won because the Frenchman
[34:51] Speaker 2: pulled out. You can't know that, says Martsier. And anyway, if.
[34:58] Speaker 4: I'd won, it would have been a grave injustice. As
[35:02] Speaker 4: Knox Johnston's boat was much smaller and much less sound.
[35:08] Speaker 2: These two, two very different men, alone in their boats,
[35:12] Speaker 2: had formed a bond across the ocean. We met once.
[35:19] Speaker 2: There was a nice friendly chap. There are two ways
[35:29] Speaker 2: to win at the game of maintenance. One is to
[35:32] Speaker 2: be a skilled, ingenious and hard working maintainer. The other
[35:39] Speaker 2: is to simplify, to opt out as far as possible
[35:43] Speaker 2: from having anything that can go wrong. Of course, you
[35:47] Speaker 2: can't opt out completely. Even simple things need maintaining. The
[35:53] Speaker 2: author Stuart Brand once met Bernard Woittessier, who told him
[35:58] Speaker 2: how every day he'd do whatever little jobs needed doing,
[36:04] Speaker 2: and then.
[36:05] Speaker 4: I spend my time reading, sleeping, eating, the good quiet
[36:11] Speaker 4: life with nothing to do.
[36:17] Speaker 2: In much the same way, there are two ways to
[36:20] Speaker 2: win at the game of life. One is to play
[36:23] Speaker 2: by the rules better than anyone else. The other is
[36:27] Speaker 2: to make up your own rules again up to a
[36:31] Speaker 2: point alas, yes, more or less money is necessary. What
[36:37] Speaker 2: Essier solved that problem by writing another best selling book,
[36:45] Speaker 2: Robin Knocks Johnston One. But Bernard Mortessier certainly didn't lose
[36:55] Speaker 2: so much for the trophy for being the first man back.
[37:00] Speaker 2: But remember it wasn't just about the trophy. The Sunday
[37:06] Speaker 2: Times had cleverly added another strand to their Golden Globe
[37:10] Speaker 2: contest to keep up public interest. When the trophy was won,
[37:15] Speaker 2: the cash prize for being the fastest, Mortessier had turned
[37:21] Speaker 2: his back on the money. But there were still two
[37:25] Speaker 2: other sailors out there who both left later and were
[37:29] Speaker 2: both on course to post faster times than Robin Knox Johnston.
[37:35] Speaker 2: At least that's how it seemed, But the glitter of
[37:40] Speaker 2: the Golden Globe was about to turn dark. We'll continue
[37:46] Speaker 2: the story next time on Cautionary Tales. A key source
[37:58] Speaker 2: for this episode was Stuart Brands, the Maintenance of Everything.
[38:04] Speaker 2: For a full list of sources, see Timharford dot com.
[38:10] Speaker 2: Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright,
[38:14] Speaker 2: Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilly. It's produced by Georgia Mills
[38:18] Speaker 2: and Marilyn Rust The sound design and original music are
[38:22] Speaker 2: the work of Pascal Wise bend A. Daph Haffrey edited
[38:27] Speaker 2: the scripts. It features the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge,
[38:31] Speaker 2: Genevieve Gaunt, Stella Harford Messea Munroe, Jamal Westman, and rufus Wright.
[38:38] Speaker 2: The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work
[38:41] Speaker 2: of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohne, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan,
[38:48] Speaker 2: Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production
[38:53] Speaker 2: of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show, please remember
[38:57] Speaker 2: to share, rate and review really does make a difference
[39:01] Speaker 2: to us. And if you want to hear it, add
[39:04] Speaker 2: free and receive a bonus audio episode, video episode, and
[39:09] Speaker 2: members only newsletter every month. Why not join the Cautionary Club.
[39:14] Speaker 2: To sign up, head to patreon dot com slash Cautionary Club.
[39:19] Speaker 2: That's Patreon, p A, t R e o N dot
[39:23] Speaker 2: com slash Cautionary Club.

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