Team Philips

Pete gathered together the team and sponsors that enabled the construction of the World-famous giant catamaran Team Philips for The Race, a nonstop dash round the world.  This was a five-year project that ended with the sad loss of the boat - but thankfully not the crew - in a freak mid-Atlantic storm in December 2000.
 
Like all of Pete’s projects, Team Philips rested on the four legs of Innovation, Technology, Challenge and Adventure. ‘Dare to Dream’ was the project’s strap line as it challenged many norms including a spirit of community and openness. The Project visitor centre, which was free to enter in keeping with the ethos of the project, saw some 1.2 million visitors. The website generated 97 million hits of which 76% were outside the UK.

Education played a big part touching all areas of the curriculum and is best illustrated by the schools music competition. Three finalists were selected out of a national entry to be rewritten into band format. When the Queen named the boat, the Royal Marines Band marched up and down - but they were playing the music written by the children.

As Pete always said: “The definition of an adventure is that it has an unknown outcome and ours was not to be. The real measure though is that if, at the end of all this we have encouraged one youngster to go that extra mile, then it will have all been worthwhile”; and it was.

You can download a booklet about Team Philips in pdf format by clicking here.

Read more in ‘an interview with Pete Goss’.