A native of
South Africa, and a
Lieutenant-Commander in the
Royal Navy, Tetley entered the 1968
Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, which was the first non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race. Tetley sailed the
Victress, a plywood trimaran that also doubled as his home. He completed the circumnavigation when he crossed his outgoing track on the evening of 22 April 1969, but at that point he was still from finishing the race and claiming the prize for fastest passage. The
Victress at this point was slowly disintegrating, but Tetley thought he was being chased by another trimaran piloted by
Donald Crowhurst, so instead of nursing his ailing boat along, he continued to sail as hard as he could. With to go, shortly after midnight on 21 May, the
Victress broke up and sank under him. Tetley had time to get off a
Mayday call before taking to his life raft, and was picked up the following afternoon. It later turned out that Tetley had not needed to hurry. Donald Crowhurst had faked his round-the-world trip, sailing only in the Atlantic and radioing false position reports. Tetley was awarded a £1,000 consolation prize by the race organizers. By now he was obsessed with properly completing a circumnavigation, so he used the money to immediately build a new trimaran, which he called the
Miss Vicky. He wrote a book about the experience that was published the following year. == Death ==