Different ways of doing things

British:
Crossing the Atlantic single-handed is a challenge attempted by only the greatest yachtsmen and women. The most important of these for us is the immortal Mr Sebury who made two historic attempts.
On 31 August 1986, he set sail from Newport, Gwent, in a fifteen-foot sloop specially equipped with a bucket full of cheese, five litres of orange juice and an ordnance survey map of the Welsh coast. Three days later he found himself adrift with his mast down and engine broken. He got just beyond the Bristol Channel, where he became a martyr to seasickness and moored the boat in the middle of a Royal Naval Torpedo range. When an official craft went out to warn him, they found Mr Sebury slumped on the side of the vessel shouting: 'Take me ashore and sink the boat.'
Encouraged by this, he made a second attempt to cross the Atlantic later that year and got as far as Milford Haven.

American:
The building of a new staff canteen in 1977 gave the US Department of Agriculture the opportunity to commemorate a famous nineteenth-century Colorado pioneer.
Amidst a blaze of enthusiastic publicity the Agriculture Secretary, Robert Bergland, opened 'The Alfred Packer Memorial Dining Facility', with the words 'Alfred Packer exemplifies the spirit and fare that this agriculture department cafeteria will provide.'
Several months later the cafeteria was renamed when it was discovered that Packer had been convicted of murdering and eating five prospectors in 1874.

These stories were taken from the Return of Heroic Failures, which will be available for further reading in our toilet.