Briton short on trappings but long on dedication

Stuart Alexander in Les Sables d'Olonne at the beginning of an epic voyage

The goodbyes have been said and there will be no family present to bid farewell to Pete Goss at Les Sables d'Olonne in France on Sunday when he starts a single-handed, non-stop round-the world yacht race.

His 50-foot yacht Aqua Quorum, sunny yellow in colour, is among the poor relations when compared with some of the lavishly funded French campaigns. But this does not deter the man from Cornwall.

Last week Goss had a holiday with wife, Tracey, sons Alex, 7, and Eliot, 2, and daughter Olivia 5. "It was great, the first time off in a long time," he said. "But they have now gone home. I have said my goodbyes. I am now focusing on the race."

The race is the third Vendee Globe and the holiday was taken in the south Brittany countryside around Les Sables d'Olonne, where the 16 competitors are lined up. Fifteen of the boats are 60-footers, with just Goss in a shorter boat.

Budget was the main reason for building something smaller but, as befits the fighting spirit of Goss, adversity is shrugged aside and even turned into an advantage. The design by Adrian Thompson is, he believes, still capable of giving the hi-tech and enormously experienced French a run for their money.

The theory runs that because the boat is shorter and built lighter, it takes less sail to handle and power it. This, combined with a "swinging" keel to right the boat, no reliance on water ballast and a combination of twin rudders and dagger boards, should boost the yacht's speed.

The French are equally convinced that, except in surfing conditions, their longer boats will always have a speed edge despite being heavier and more technically vulnerable.

Goss disagrees. The 34-year-old ex-Marine has kept largely to himself, not least because he could not afford the sort of team support that his competitors have had at their disposal. Even his publicity effort has had to be curtailed as the cash ran out.

But Goss has had family support in the shape of a mother and father who individually assembled all the meals he would need for 120 days - the single-handed around-the-world record is 109 days, set by Titouan Lamazou in 1989/90 - and then trotted along to the local butcher to use his vacuum packer.

The overdraft has been reduced to pounds 85,000 with the last-minute injection of pounds 25,000 by 3M. "That stopped me from going bust," he admitted. Most people would be pretty frantic at the thought. Again, he manages to sound relaxed, as if everyone with a wife, three children, a mortgage and no income would do and say the same.

But Goss is not the same. His commitment to the round-the-world solo race is unquestioned, and he likes nothing more than to steer the conversation back around to his "brilliant little boat". "I'll just get out there and work as hard as I can," he said.

There is no thought of doubting him.

It is not as though he has not been round the world before. In 1992 he was skipper of one of the British Steel boats so he knows the routine from that, although this time the race is tougher, the risks greater, and the technical skills required at a higher level.

Goss sees the race not just as a battle between himself and the worst that the Southern Ocean gales, ice and storms can throw at him, but as a war which has many battles.

"No one knows what fate will deal out," he says as he makes the final preparations in what is, for a 50-footer, remarkably cramped living space. "Some will have good races, some bad; there will be damage and injuries. Some will finish, some will not."

It is that determination to finish that is uppermost in his mind. The possible dangers lurking ahead do not worry him. "I am not afraid but I have great respect for what has to be done. I see this project as an apprenticeship and the springboard to go on and do other things."

Tony Bullimore, whose 60-foot Global Challenger is the second British boat in the Vendee Globe, was yesterday making last-ditch efforts to rescue a sponsorship deal with Exide which he thought had been agreed. Bullimore will start the race regardless.