WHEN lone sailor Donald Crowhurst disappeared in a solo around the world yacht race, a host of conspiracy theories sprang up.

It is generally acknowledged he had a mental breakdown and went over the side after faking his route and realising he would be exposed when he arrived back in Teignmouth.

One rumour maintained he was hiding on a desert island, and another in a national newspaper in 1969 claimed he was alive and well and living in north Devon.

A freelance photographer was quoted as saying he had seen the yachtsman in Barnstaple. He also alleged he had been living in a caravan in Scotland for a time.

The story infuriated his agent, journalist Rodney Hallworth, who declared: I am getting very tired of people telling me that Crowhurst is alive. In the last few weeks I have been told he is living in France, Ireland and south America.

‘And I had a letter from a man in Portsmouth who said Crowhurst was in Argentina, having sent his trimaran Teignmouth Electron off on a fixed course.

‘I also had a telephone call asking me to meet a man in secret in an Exeter pub.

‘He claimed he had seen Donald living in north Devon with a woman aged about 60. all absolute rubbish.’

Pointing out that he regarded such tales as rubbish, Hallworth warned they could only bring further grief and heartache to the family.

‘I firmly believe he is dead, and until something much more convincing and credible turns up, I will not alter my opinion.’

The photographer was said to be unavailable at his Fremington home, and his wife on the telephone said he would not be talking to anybody, and had nothing to add to his story.

The Crowhurst saga has been the subject of two films, a documentary and a book, and will probably go down in history as one of the great mysteries of the sea.

As a postscript, Hallworth successfully sued one newspaper which had intimated he had hidden Crowhurst, and in celebration renamed his cottage in Shaldon after the editor!