Articles

Thursday 9th August 2007

FASTNET FOR FUN AND PLAYING FOR SUCCESS

Pete Goss has announced his entry into the Rolex Fastnet 2007 yacht race. The Westcountry sailor and adventurer is bringing together former Team Philips crew mates Paul Larsen and Andy Hindley to join him aboard the small lightweight SeaCart 30 trimaran Cornwall Playing for Success.

Considered one of the world’s classic offshore competitions, the 608-mile race will start on 12th August from the Royal Yacht Squadron line off Cowes. The fleet will then race out through the Solent, continuing westward down the English Channel to Land's End and then across the Celtic Sea, before rounding the infamous Fastnet Rock off the south-west tip of Ireland and returning to the finish in Plymouth.

Competitors range from amateur to experienced sailors and the race is believed by many to be one of the most demanding sporting events there is. With its tricky tidal currents and changeable weather conditions, this challenging biennial race is infamous for claiming the lives of 15 sailors in 1979.

Pete Goss said: “It will be great to sail with Paul and Andy again. The boat may be smaller than the last multihull we sailed together, and will probably be one of the smallest in the fleet, but it will be no less fun and we will be as competitive as ever. In sailing, anything can happen – this is high octane dinghy sailing offshore – but we have done what we can to prepare ourselves and the boat and it is going to be a great race.”

“The Fastnet race is an exciting competition and we are thrilled that we will be sailing along the coast of Devon and twice past Cornwall before rounding my home ground of the Rame Peninsula and finishing in Plymouth.”

The team aims to raise awareness and funds for the charity Cornwall Playing for Success, of which Pete is a founding trustee.

Pete explained: “Last year we raised £40k for the charity, which uses sport to help those pupils identified by their schools in need of a boost to get back up to speed in numeracy, literacy and ICT, whilst raising their self esteem and motivation. We are delighted to be helping a local charity that makes such a dramatic difference to the lives of these kids.”

It will be possible to track Pete’s progress on his newly revamped website www.petegoss.com. The new site brings together a diverse set of his projects that sit together through a common thread of Innovation, Technology, Challenge and Adventure. Pete has always had an ethos of openness about his projects and Polar travel, ocean sailing, challenging the norm with new concepts and education are all featured on the site.

Note to News Desks
This press release is available to cut-and-paste into your editing software, where high-resolution images, suitable for the print media, are also available to download. Additional imagery can also be found alongside stories relating to Pete Goss.
More information about the Fastnet race and the SeaCart 30 can be found on Pete’s website at: www.petegoss.com, where Pete also talks candidly about his past, present and future projects in the ‘An Interview with Pete Goss’ section.

More information about the race, including race updates/competitors’ positions can be found on the Royal Ocean Racing Club website – www.rorc.org.

Background Information - Cornwall Playing for Success:

Playing for Success (PfS) is a national initiative established in 1997 by the Department for Education & Skills (DfES). PfS aims to establish study support/out-of-hours learning centres at sports grounds/venues using the medium of sport to help those pupils identified by their schools in need of a boost to get back up to speed in numeracy, literacy and ICT. The programme also aims to raise self esteem and motivation.
Cornwall has 2 full model PfS centres at present the Pirates Learning Zone & Delaware Adventure Zone for Learning. Working in partnership, the charity Cornwall Playing for Success and the Children, Young People & Families Service of Cornwall County Council, has enabled a third centre to be established at Porthpean Outdoor Education Centre from September 2006.

The charity ‘Cornwall Playing for Success’ has been established to support more opportunities for more young people across the county and specifically aims to advance the education of the young people in Cornwall through the provision of 'Playing for Success' (PfS) learning opportunities across the county. On a ten week out-of-school-hours programme, the students improve their literacy and numeracy scores by 17 and 24 months in primary and secondary schools respectively. Children are nominated by their teachers to win a place on the programme, which is not about ‘bad apples’ or ‘under-achievers’, it is about helping kids who have unrealised potential.

The Team:
Pete Goss is a West Countryman and former Royal Marine who has been sailing since he was small child. He skippered an entry in the British Steel Challenge, before setting up the team that designed and built Aqua Quorum, the boat on which he competed in the Vendee Globe. After saving the life of a fellow competitor, Pete became a national hero and was awarded the MBE and France’s highest honour – the Legion d’Honneur. Most recently Pete gathered together the team and sponsors that enabled the construction of the world famous giant catamaran 'Team Philips' which was sadly lost in a freak mid Atlantic storm in December 2000. Pete lives in Cornwall with his wife Tracey and three children.

Paul Larsen comes from Australia and is a long-time friend of Pete’s. Paul was one of the crew on Team Philips. He is a keen microlight pilot and has competed at world-class level on top multihull events from ‘The Race’, to crewing on the winning entry in Tracy Edwards’s recent round the world race for maxi multihulls. He was also a watch leader when Maiden broke the world 24-hour speed record. Paul has spent a number of years working on his passion to break the ‘sound barrier’ of sailing (www.sailrocket.com). Paul lives in Weymouth with his partner Helena.

Andy Hindley is from Accrington in Lancashire and has known Pete since the early days of the British Steel Challenge. Having worked with Pete during the early stages of the Vendee Globe campaign Andy joined the Team Philips catamaran after skippering Save The Children in the 1996-1997 BT Global Challenge round the world race. Currently working as the Race Director for the Volvo Ocean Race, Andy lives in Curdridge, Hampshire with his wife Julie.

Contact: Stuart Elford, Formedia Ltd – Communications Partner to Pete Goss MBE:
Tel: 01752 764222 or 07796 957677, Email: stuart@formedia.co.uk