Rounding the Horn

Whichever way you dice it, it’s fair to say that Mike Horn is not your typical yacht owner. Born in South Africa in 1966 to South African and Swiss parents, his adventurous youth was brought to a hard reality when he saw war in Angola while on military service. After a brief spell working post-university, he decided to do something different – very different. He spent a year in Brazil with Brazilian special forces, then undertook a 7,000-kilometre swim down the Amazon river with nothing but a bodyboard, a hammock and a machete. Mike Horn the explorer and adventurer was born.

For that matter, his 32-metre sailing superyacht ketch – named Pangaea after the supercontinent that existed 225 million years ago – is not your typical superyacht either. For a start, the aluminium hull is unpainted, and there’s a reason for that – Pangaea was designed not only to carry Horn, his crew and budding youth environmentalists anywhere in the oceans, but also to be able to withstand ice in the extreme north and south latitudes.

Why aluminium? Because it not only makes for a faster and more nimble yacht than heavier steel, but also deforms in the event of a collision with ice, whereas steel tears. “Sailing the Southern Ocean through the Roaring Forties and Fifties and into the Screaming Sixties is an expedition in itself,” Horn says. “And Pangaea can go into the ice but she’s not a nuclear ice-breaker – she can’t break ice thicker than one metre. But I wanted to get to Antarctica like Shackleton did, and like Scott, like Amundson.”

Horn’s desire to build such an extreme vessel was born from his own experiences as an explorer and was informed by his desire to reach ever further and see ever more of the natural world. “I’ve seen more of the natural world than almost any other human being,” he says. “I swam down the Amazon, I circumnavigated the world following the equator, I went to the north pole in winter, I crossed the south pole, I climbed some of the highest 8,000-metre peaks without oxygen, and then I decided to build Pangaea, an SUV of the ocean – a vessel that can go anywhere, to circumnavigate the world by the north and south poles.”

Pangaea’s story is reflected not only in the adventures she has undertaken – Horn says she has circumnavigated the world 27 times – and the positive impacts she has had through the original Pangaea expedition and the drive to encourage youth involvement in environmental projects, but also through her build. Designed by a Brazilian-Belgian architect and constructed using aluminium he negotiated for free from American company Alcoa, the yacht was built in Sao Paolo, Brazil, in 2008 and Horn specifically sought out skilled local tradespeople who were unable to find work to employ on the project.

Following her launch, Horn embarked on a four-year, 60,000-mile expedition that would take Pangaea all around the world, with the specific aim of introducing young people to the beauty of the planet. “Pangaea means one world,” Horn says. “Being an explorer made me understand that I had to pass on the experience I lived through with the youth of tomorrow. The idea was to build a boat that I can take young people from around the world and put them together on one planet – because the boat represents a planet to me – and then really try to show the beauty of the planet to them.”

Young adults from 15 to 20 years of age could apply for a place on the yacht, and for the lucky few who made it through selection an experience of a lifetime awaited them – not only exploring and experiencing nature at its wildest and purest, but learning about nature and ecosystems and understanding how both fragile and important they are. “The idea of Pangaea was to make them understand how nature can take care of humans if you respect and understand it,” Horn states.

Pangaea recently underwent a refit and refurb in Gdansk, Poland at the Sunreef shipyard – one of Horn’s partners – and on 3 May 2023 set off from the Yacht Club de Monaco on a new expedition Horn has called What’s Left. “Pangaea is a unique vessel built exactly for my needs – I needed an expedition boat, a four-wheel-drive of the oceans that can go anywhere,” he says. “I decided to refit her because our project has changed. We wanted to make her more safe and seaworthy and more comfortable and liveable for the people onboard. As Pangaea is a home away from home we needed to bring in a lot of different elements to make it as comfortable as possible to live on a vessel in the middle of nowhere.”

For What’s Left, Horn is planning on another four-year expedition that will take in six-month stints in the Arctic, the Amazon, Patagonia, Antarctica, Africa, the Asia-Pacific region including New Zealand, Australian and Asia, and then northern Siberia and Alaska. “We will go and visit places I saw 30 years ago and will do expeditions I’ve always wanted to do but did not have the time to do,” he enthuses.

What’s Left is about more than just exploring, however. As the name suggests, part of Horn’s aim is to compare what’s there now with what was there when he first visited, to see the impacts that rising sea temperatures and climate change are having on our environment and to raise awareness of the peril we are putting our planet in. But there’s a more positive side too, and once again Horn will be encouraging the next generation of explorers to immerse themselves in and increase their understanding of the natural world and its importance to our survival.

Called Pangaea X, the new initiative is effectively the second edition of the environmental programme for young people, conceived to inspire them and to bring projects that have a positive impact to fruition. It’s all part of encouraging a new generation of stakeholders in the planet – and sailing on Pangaea is an ideal way to encourage that. “The aim is to support them as they develop their projects with the help of experts and coaches,” says Horn. “During the programme, teams will learn about concepts such as Business Model, Design Thinking and Business Plan to help them make their idea achievable. It’s only then that they can come aboard and make their project a reality. We then become a platform for execution.”

More than anything, Horn’s approach to life should serve as an inspiration not only to our environmental responsibilities, but also as a nudge toward the idea of carpe diem – and the freedom that a well-found yacht can offer. And if it seems like it’s all out of reach, Horn has an answer for that too. “We’re all different – we can all find our ultimate challenge,” he concludes. “Your dream is one step away – all you need to do is make that decision to take that step. The moment you’ve engaged is the moment you will see your dreams are not so far out of reach.”