South African explorer · Owner, S/Y Pangaea · Solo Arctic & Equator circumnavigations
b. 1966 · Pangaea launched 2008 · Latitude Zero 1999–2000
“The only limits are the ones you accept.”
Mike Horn, Pangaea Expedition public statements.
S/Y Pangaea
Mike Horn is the modern face of long-form solo exploration. He first came to public attention in 1999–2000 with Latitude Zero — a six-month solo circumnavigation along the Equator without motorised transport. He followed that with Arktos (2002–04), a 27-month traverse of the Arctic Circle, again without motorised transport. In 2008 he commissioned Pangaea, a 35-metre purpose-built steel-hulled expedition sloop capable of operating from Antarctica to the high Arctic, and used her as the platform for a four-year global youth-expedition programme. In 2017 he and Børge Ousland completed the first unsupported winter crossing of the Arctic Ocean — 87 days on the ice.
The Pangaea programme is explicitly built around taking young people into wild places, on the principle that the people who will protect those places are the people who have seen them. Horn has worked with WWF, the Princess Charlene Foundation, and the Mike Horn Explorer Programme to fund youth exploration and education. His expeditions consistently feed climate and ecosystem data back to national science programmes.
S/Y Pangaea — 35-metre, steel hull, lifting keel, ice-strengthened, designed for solo and small-crew exploration in both polar regions. Pangaea has visited Antarctica, Greenland, Svalbard, the Northwest Passage, the Russian Arctic, and most of the warm-water expedition destinations the WV 110 will be sold against.
Pangaea is the small-scale prototype of what Wind Voyage offers at 110 metres. Horn's whole career is the proof that the way you reach the wild places is by building a boat that can actually get there. Wind Voyage is that idea, made charter-grade.
If ocean voyaging is something you’d like to pursue, we have developed a way to do it using wind and solar power out of our respect for the oceans.
Discover the FlagshipPangaea is the 35-metre purpose-built steel-hulled expedition sloop commissioned by Mike Horn in 2008. She has a lifting keel, ice-strengthened hull, and is designed to operate from Antarctica to the high Arctic. Pangaea has visited Antarctica, Greenland, Svalbard, the Northwest Passage and the Russian Arctic.
Yes — in 2017 Mike Horn and Børge Ousland completed the first unsupported winter crossing of the Arctic Ocean, an 87-day traverse on the ice. Horn also completed Latitude Zero (a 6-month solo circumnavigation along the Equator without motorised transport, 1999–2000) and the 27-month Arktos expedition around the Arctic Circle.
Pangaea is operated as a global youth-expedition platform — taking young people into wild places on the principle that the people who will protect those places are the people who have seen them. The programme has worked with WWF, the Princess Charlene Foundation, and the Mike Horn Explorer Programme.
