Pete Goss, MBE is a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
yachtA yacht is a high end recreational boat. It designates two rather different classes of watercraft, sailing and power boats. Yachts are different from working ships mainly by their leisure purpose. It was not until the rise of the steamboat and other types of powerboat that sailing vessels in...
sman who has clocked up at sea.
Pete Goss, MBE is a
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
yachtA yacht is a high end recreational boat. It designates two rather different classes of watercraft, sailing and power boats. Yachts are different from working ships mainly by their leisure purpose. It was not until the rise of the steamboat and other types of powerboat that sailing vessels in...
sman who has clocked up at sea.
A former Royal Marine, he is famous for his pioneering project
Team PhilipsTeam Philips was a catamaran sailing vessel built to try to take Pete Goss around the World in record time.The design consisted of two thin, wave piercing hulls, each with its own sail, connected by high placed bridges between the hulls to minimise wave drag. It was built in Totnes, England to...
. He received a
Legion d'HonneurThe Légion d'honneur or Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
for saving fellow sailor Raphael Dinelli in the 1996
Vendée GlobeThe Vendée Globe is a round-the-world single-handed yacht race, sailed non-stop and without assistance. The race was founded by Philippe Jeantot in 1989, and since 1992 has taken place every four years....
solo around the world yacht race. During a severe storm in the
Southern OceanThe Southern Ocean, also known as the Great Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Ocean and the South Polar Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean south of 60° S latitude. The International Hydrographic Organization has designated the Southern Ocean as an oceanic division encircling...
, he turned his boat around and spent two days sailing into hurricane force winds, finally finding Dinelli in a life-raft that had been dropped by an Australian Air Force plane shortly before his own yacht sank.
He trained the original set of amateur crews for the
British Steel ChallengeThe Global Challenge is a round the world yacht race run by Challenge Business, the company started by Sir Chay Blyth in 1989...
, and competed in the race on board Hoffbräu Lager, coming 3rd overall.
Goss currently lives in
TorpointTorpoint is a town in the far south east of Cornwall, England, separated from the city of Plymouth by a stretch of water referred to as the Hamoaze, which itself is the mouth of the River Tamar. It is on the Rame Peninsula....
,
CornwallCornwall is a county of England in the United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the...
, and has three children: Alex (19), Livvy (17) and Eliot (13).
In June 2008, Goss launched a replica of a 19th century wooden
luggerA lugger is a type of small sailing vessel setting lugsails on two or more masts and perhaps lug topsails.-Defining the rig:The lugsail is an evolved version of the classical square sail. In both rigs, the upper side of the sail is attached to a spar, the yard, which is hoisted up the mast by a...
called
The Spirit of Mystery. Four months later, he began a voyage from Cornwall to
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
on the boat, which has no modern electrical or navigation systems.
External links