Joshua Slocum (February 20, 1844[1] – on or shortly after November 14, 1909) was the first person to sail single-handedly around the world. He was a Nova Scotian-born ...
Entered the Southern Ocean at roughly a third of the way around, took damage and lost all his water supplies, and had to do the rest of the race by rationing his beer cans. 1960s battery and valve radio technology failed somewhere in the Indian Ocean and he could receive but not transmit, and had to send a status update by throwing a message in a bottle to a passing ship.
There's a related link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst who entered the Golden Globe race without the proper equipment, backed himself into a corner, planned to cheat to save his home, and didn't survive it.