I am writing from the library of a chateau in Normandy. It was built, I think the count told me, sometime during the 14th century. The chapel behind the house predates America’s founding by some half-century. On the third floor, there is a hidden room where mass was said secretly during the years of revolution. If these walls could talk, what might they say? They were here for it all: the ancien régime, the revolution, Napoleon, the Franco-Prussian War, the Belle Époque, the Great War, the Occupation, the Liberation… then the long postwar; the recession of the Empire, the loss of old France, the rise of something else… But they do not talk; they are a silent witness. Their testimony is that they survive it all, still doing their duty, still holding erect this great house. And that is entirely thanks to the family that has kept it as their ancestral charge.

A great old house is always in the process of maintenance, restoration, and repair. If it is not, it will rapidly become unlivable and eventually burn or fall to the ground. There must always be a caretaker. 

On my second day here, the hot water on my side of the house went out. My host quickly tracked down the source of the problem and sent for a replacement part. In the meantime, I can shower on the other side of the house. My inconvenience is nothing more than a walk down a long hallway, and even that will be resolved by morning. There is no obligation on the part of my host—I am a guest, not a customer. But you learn much about a man from whether he fixes the thing immediately or lets it wait. I know some people who would leave the water heater broken and simply switch to the bathroom that still had hot water until they “got around to fixing it,” which might be years later, if ever.

***

In Stewart Brand’s new book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, he opens with the 1968-69 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race — a race to complete the first solo sailboat voyage around the world. Nine competitors departed England between June and October 1968. They’d race south down the Atlantic into the perilous “Roaring Forties” latitudes of the Southern Ocean, where, below any land mass, there is nothing to interrupt winds nor waves in their never-ending blast eastwards around the world. From there, the rough turbulent waters east, below Africa, India, Australia, across the South Pacific and around the tip of South America, before turning northward back to England. The distance was roughly 30,000 miles, with no stops or outside assistance permitted. GPS had yet to be invented. Navigation was entirely by sextant, chronometer, and almanac. Self-steering gear was essential — without it, solo sailing was considered impossible. Failure of critical equipment in the Southern Ocean meant likely death as rescue was unlikely.

Brand details how three of the sailors’ approaches to maintenance would decide their destiny.

Robin Knox-Johnston: 29-years-old

The first man had already sailed his 32-foot wood ketch SUHAILI 17,000 miles from India to England. It was not an ideal sailboat for a round-the-world voyage without stopping. But he was unable to raise the funds to build something more suitable, so he made do with what he had, loading it down with all manner of tools and maintenance materials and setting sail. 

Off the coast of West Africa, Knox-Johnston dove under the boat repeatedly with canvas strips, copper sheeting, and Stockholm tar to fix a serious leak in the hull. A shark began circling while he was in the water, so he climbed on board to retrieve a rifle, shot it, and got back to work on the repair. When his radio transmitter failed, he resoldered it using tiny dots of solder melted from navigation light bulbs. When he lost his self-steering gear south of Australia, he improvised a sail balance to keep course and removed his bunk sideboard so he’d be thrown to the floor if the boat jibed unexpectedly. It was a rough voyage, but one he seemed to endure, writing in his notebook that being fully occupied with the maintenance and repair of the ship was the one thing that drove away his feelings of depression.

Robin Knox-Johnston was prepared to deal with problems as they arose, and he didn’t have to wait very long.

Donald Crowhurst: 35-years-old

The second man entered the race in hopes that the prestige and prize money would solve his financial problems. His boat was a 41-foot trimaran, a novel design that was theoretically twice as fast as traditional keelboats but had a tendency to— if it capsized—remain stuck in an inverted position that would be impossible to right. So Crowhurst designed an elaborate auto-righting system using a mast-top buoyancy bag. But he never got it operational. He left on the last possible day, October 31st, and accidentally left all the repair materials behind on the dock. 

Cowhurst’s specialty was electronics. That was the one thing he brought in spades, which became a problem when the leaks sprang, and seawater poured in. His self-steering gear was improperly attached and kept vibrating screws loose. He had to cannibalize screws from other parts of the boat to try to keep it attached. It became clear the vessel could not withstand the journey if it entered the Southern Ocean. So he parked in the South Atlantic Ocean and began keeping a fraudulent logbook and cabling fictional positions back to England. At one point, violating the race rules, he sneaked ashore in Argentina to retrieve some plywood to fix a split that appeared in the hull.

Unlike Knox-Johnston, Crowhurst loathed maintenance. To self-motivate, whenever he did some chore he didn’t feel like doing, he would have some rum or wine. Soon, he began running out of it. It was not normal laziness, though. Anything to do with his radio or electronics, he could throw himself into with vigor, working long hours in the tropical heat.

In his final weeks, his journal entries became increasingly delusional, with references to a philosophical discovery that he believed would liberate humanity, passages that could have been lifted from a Dr. Bronner’s soap label, like “And yet, and yet – if creative abstraction is to act as a vehicle for the new entity, and to leave its hitherto stable state it lies within the power of creative abstraction to produce the phenomenon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” He scribbled one last note: “It is finished. IT IS THE MERCY,” and a short time later, jumped overboard. The boat was found nine days later.

Bernard Moitessier: 46-year-old

The third man, a Frenchman, was the most experienced sailor in the race. He drew on his experience to build the ideal boat for the race’s demands. The hull was made of steel, with multiple layers of special paint to prevent corrosion. He installed steps up the side of the masts so he could easily climb them for inspection and maintenance. The sails were reinforced and so well made that it was six months before he had to sew up any tears. He focused on doing it simply and doing it well, taking along what was needed and leaving behind anything else. He hated electronics, and instead of a radio, took along a slingshot so he could launch film canisters containing messages onto the decks of passing ships. By leaving excessive stowage behind, his boat was lighter and faster.

When Moitessier’s steel bowsprit was bent in a collision with the stern of a freighter he was passing a message to, it could have doomed his expedition. But he sat for two nights and a day and worked out how he would fix it alone at sea, devising an ingenious way to bend it straight with a winch and boom. His approach to maintenance was not to fix issues as they arose — though like Knox-Johnston he could do that in a crisis — but to notice them and address them before they grew toward failure. 

Moitessier spent most of his time reading, sleeping, and eating. He got into yoga just past the Cape of Good Hope. By the South Pacific, he was catching up to Knox-Johnston, who started 69 days before him. He was predicted to overtake him, winning not just the cash prize for the fastest time but also the Golden Globe trophy for the first solo nonstop sail around the world. His return was hotly anticipated, and the French government was preparing a naval escort and an award of the Legion of Honor. Then, a message from Bernard Moitessier came over the wires from Cape Town. It read: 

“My intention is to continue the voyage, still nonstop, toward the Pacific Islands, where there is plenty of sun and more peace than in Europe… I am continuing nonstop because I am happy at sea, and perhaps because I want to save my soul.” 

Three months later, Moitessier finally docked in Tahiti. Knox-Johnston won the race (he would later award the £5,000 prize to Donald Crowhurst’s widow and children), but Moitessier won something else. He spent two years in Tahiti trying to put into words what the sea had taught him: 

“How long will it last, this peace I have found at sea? It is all of life that I contemplate—sun, clouds, time that passes and abides. Occasionally it is also that other world, foreign now, that I left centuries ago. The modern, artificial world where man has been turned into a money-making machine to satisfy false needs, false joys.”