Crowhurst entered the race late, and had his boat custom-made in a hurry. It suffered one problem after another, and was still leaking when Crowhurst set sail on the last day allowed by the race rules. According to Crowhurst's logs, the boat's problems only worsened. It was clear that Crowhurst would not make it all the way. So he came up with another plan.

Crowhurst started constructing a second log book. He easily knew enough math to chart a second, faster course, and do the calculations in reverse to make the log look as though he had made more progress than he really did. Over the next few months, Crowhurst sailed in circles in the South Atlantic, and at one point, disqualified himself from the race by landing on the coast of Brazil to make repairs. However, he did not report this. His new log book claimed that he had just finished traversing the Indian Ocean and was headed home along with Knox-Johnson and Moitessier.

At this point, Crowhurst had to start making his way back up the Atlantic toward the finish line, since his actual performance was much slower than the progress recorded on his new log book. Eventually, it would catch up to his real position. Crowhurst contemplated what would happen when he arrived at the finish line first, everyone cheering him, thinking for the rest of his life that he had won the race.

His first realization was that he couldn't afford to "win". The winner's log books were subject to close scrutiny, and even Crowhurst couldn't fake them well enough. Plus he would have to carry that lie with him for the rest of his life. His only choice was to appear to finish the race, but not first, so he could destroy his log books and retire in obscurity.

But, as fate would have it, it was starting to look like that woudn't be possible. Almost all the boats had dropped out of the race. Moitessier and Knox-Johnson were probably still in, but nobody knew where they were. Crowhurst could be the only boat left in the race, or he could be so far ahead of the other boats that not winning would itself be suspicious, based on his earlier claims made by radio. It looked like Crowhurst was doomed to failure and disgrace.

Crowhurst was a failing businessman. His company was in trouble, and entering the race was a way for him to temporarily escape his probems, and, if he won, to help solve them. Crowhurst wanted desperately to win that race. But he couldn't do it by fraud. It was just too hard. Crowhurst was torn between his conscience and his desire for success, and was unable to resolve the tension between them. Drifting in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, he retreated from the world into philosophical fantasies based on Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and the thoughts of his own crumbling mind.

The waters of the North Atlantic Ocean circulate clockwise around a stagnant, seaweed-infested region called the Sargasso Sea. An unattended boat in that area would probably survive the calm conditions without capsizing. After the Golden Globe race was finished, Crowhurst's trimaran was found here, intact and drifting slowly. When the rescue party boarded the boat and entered the cabin, they found most of Crowhurst's log books stacked neatly on the nagivation table. Only his real log book, which would have explicitly proved his fraud, was missing. One log book was filled with perplexing, incoherent philosophical ramblings. Some people suggested that Crowhurst had faked them, but a psychologist, after reading them, challenged any sane person to write anything even remotely similar.

Crowhurst was never found. Except for the obviously incriminating evidence of his one actual log book, Crowhurst made provisions for the safe retrieval of everything he had written about his experiences in the Golden Globe race, including his fake log book and the reverse calculations that proved it was fake. Crowhurst's tragedy was one of the most bizarre events of the 1960s. Jounalists Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall did an excellent analysis of the evidence, including a recreation of Crowhurst's path, in The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst.