Goss hero to French nation
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Your support makes all the difference.The flags along the waterfront in this seaside town in the west of France barely stir in the slightest of breezes. What is special, though, is that they are not Tricolours but Union flags waiting to welcome home France's newest hero, the Briton Pete Goss, who was yesterday honoured by President Chirac with the country's highest accolade, the Legion d'Honneur.
It was on Christmas Day that Goss, 36, taking part in the world's longest and toughest solo yacht race, the Vendee Globe, received a message from race headquarters: his fellow competitor Raphael Dinelli's yacht had been overwhelmed by giant seas and was sinking, deep in the Southern Ocean and thousands of miles from any help. Goss was the Frenchman's only hope of rescue.
Goss, an ex-Marine, turned his yacht, Aqua Quorum, back into the teeth of a violent storm, whose near hurricane-force winds would, a few days later, capsize Tony Bullimore and Thierry Dubois. By this time Dinelli, who had climbed into a life raft just as his boat sank, was 160 miles away.
Time and again Aqua Quorum was knocked over by the seas. In his cabin, awash with water and spilt oil, Goss planned the rescue while close to the end of his own endurance. After 36 hours he was in the search area and shortly afterwards, guided by the RAAF, located Dinelli, who by this time was suffering extreme hypothermia, and pulled him on board. "The best Christmas present I have ever had," Goss reported, "came all wrapped up in a survival suit." With Dinelli safe, Goss turned his boat again and 12 days later delivered him safely to Hobart, Tasmania.
But Goss's troubles were not over. His elbow, which had been troubling him for some time, was giving him severe pain. In the middle of one of the world's most hostile oceans, half-way between New Zealand and Cape Horn, he decided he would have to operate. As his radio was out of action he sought medical advice by satellite fax. He then proceeded. "I have to say that it was rather a strange sensation, slicing away at oneself with a scalpel," he faxed back, along with the news that the surgery was successful.
Today in Les Sables d'Olonne, that slight breeze is fanning hopes that Pete Goss, after 26,000 miles and 140 days at sea, might arrive before the weekend is over, to receive a hero's welcome from the 60,000 French fans expected.
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