About Pete

My name's Pete Goss and in 2009 I sailed my 37 foot wooden fishing lugger called Spirit of Mystery 12,000 nautical miles from Cornwall to Australia to recreate an epic 1854 voyage.

I have had some unforgettable ocean adventures in the past and this was no different. The original Mystery was an open Mounts Bay lugger sailed to Australia by seven Cornishmen wanting to try their luck in the Australian gold rush.

Our boat is as true to the original Mystery as possible. Although there are concessions to safety, we do not use the engine at sea and there are no modern electrical or navigation systems, with navigation by the sun and stars.

My crew of four - myself, my 14-year-old son Eliot, my brother Andy and brother-in-law Mark Maidment - completed Mystery's 12,000 nautical mile passage from Cornwall to Australia in five months.

I believe life is for living, and this for me is life at its best.

I have learned from experience that whether you are travelling across the world's oceans or perhaps going boating for the day on your local waterway, good preparation and planning are essential.

Pete's ocean adventures

Pete Goss is a former British Royal Marine who is no stranger to adventure. The Spirit of Mystery recreation voyage is just the latest in his long record of seafaring adventures.

Pete has competed in six transatlantic and two round-the-world races. The most recognised of these was the 1996-97 Vendee Globe non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race in his Open 50 yacht Aqua Quorum. This race turned Pete into a national hero for his dramatic rescue of fellow competitor Raphael Dinelli in hurricane force winds in the Southern Ocean. He was awarded the MBE by Queen Elizabeth II and also the Legion d'Honneur by the French President.

Pete's other sailing exploits include training and leading a previously inexperienced crew of ten through one of the toughest yacht race in the world - the British Steel Challenge. The route circumnavigated the 'wrong way', against the prevailing winds and currents. Pete led the team aboard Hofbrau into third place.

Back in 1988, Pete in his first racing project had defied convention by finishing second in the Carlsberg Single-handed Transatlantic Race sailing Cornish Meadow, a tiny catamaran of just 26 feet in length. This proved that that small, lightweight multihulls could be viable giant-killing race boats.

After the 1996 Vendee Globe, Pete returned to multihulls with a five-year project to build an innovative new maxi-catamaran called Team Philips. Unfortunately, he and his crew were forced to abandon the giant cat when it began breaking up in an extreme mid-Atlantic Ocean storm in December 2000.

The 2006 Two-handed Round Britain and Ireland Yacht Race marked a return to competitive sailing for Pete, this time on a small but speedy SeaCart 30 trimaran.

Pete has also written a book called Close To The Wind about his sailing adventures, but he doesn't confine himself to boats and is a frequent visitor to the North Pole.