GREAT NEW PARTNERSHIP WITH EXPLORER DAVE KING

Another good MiniCat ambassador joining our team

Dave King is a renowned adventurer, polar explorer, mountain guide, kayaker, sailor, and professional dog musher. Born in the UK and raised amidst the rugged landscapes of Wales, Scotland, and India, Dave’s childhood was marked by extraordinary travels with his adventurous parents. This early exposure to diverse cultures and terrains included living in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, and climbing in the majestic Himalayas.

For most of his adult life, Dave has been based in North Alaska, immersing himself in the vast and untamed wilderness of the Arctic. With expertise spans climbing, skiing, kayaking, sailing, and mushing across the Arctic regions of Alaska, Canada, Nunavut, and Greenland, his deep connection with the Arctic has shaped his commitment to preserving its fragile environment.

Currently residing in Lapland, Sweden, with a pack of 50 sled dogs, Dave continues his adventures while advocating for the environment. He is the driving force behind the Arctic Plastic Project, an initiative dedicated to tackling plastic pollution in Arctic waters. Additionally, he leads Arctic Alive, a media-focused project that highlights the environmental challenges facing the Arctic and amplifies the voices of remote Arctic communities grappling with the impacts of climate change.

Dave King’s passion for adventure and unwavering commitment to environmental conservation make him a true steward of the Arctic, dedicated to preserving its pristine beauty for future generations.

Sailing – Dave says he feels a ‘fraud’ when it comes to being referred to as a ‘sailor’. That said, he has been on the water as long as he can remember. Dave considers himself a bad swimmer and hence will go to excessive lengths to remain on the surface! This, he feels, has compelled him to be as efficient as possible at maintaining whatever craft he’s on or in, firmly on the surface.

Those craft have evolved from oil drum rafts with bed sheet sails at age 6, through a long period of dinghy sailing & racing, Mirrors, Lasers, Fireballs and eventually 49er skiffs. This led to bigger boats and decades offshore sailing that included a couple of ‘Transpac’ races and various delivery trips between California & Alaska.

Dave actually has a degree in yacht design, specializing in composites, however preferred undertaking restorations on vintage wooden yachts in order to fund winters in Alaska dog mushing. He has bought, restored, and sold many wonderful and unique old sailing vessels, periodically finding a composite ‘pocket-rocket’ have fun with.

Dave is passionate about anything that floats, especially if it is fast. He previously ran a windsurfing school for some years, emphasizing on big wave sailing, and balanced that with expedition whitewater kayaking. He has paddled rivers in the Arctic, Pakistan & Asia. Dave says that he is now too old & fat to fit in a whitewater boat, but he still runs sea kayaking expeditions around the globe and his most recent explorations have been in Mongolia of all places.

Beyond extending the possibilities with the new MiniCat Explorers, Dave’s’ current ambition is developing a project around a pure offshore, single handed ocean racer and using that as a platform to sail in the Arctic documenting environmental changes there.

Dave’s life passion is the Arctic, combining Arctic exploration and adventuring with sailing, for him, has unending options. His last boat was an 18m aluminium expedition sail boat but that had the downsides of cost and complications when spending long periods in Arctic waters. So, Dave is now focused on Arctic sailing in a different way, with small, portable boats that can get out of pack ice quickly and into shallow, iceberg free waters and can be flown into remote locations to explore. This is largely how the concept for the MiniCat 520 Explorer was born and has now become a reality.

In Dave’s words:

“A couple of years ago, when planning another sailing expedition to East Greenland, I came across MiniCat and considered one as a second tender to our expedition vessel. A tender that could serve that purpose but also carry some freight, be paddled and of course, be sailed. This opened the dialogue with MiniCat who already had a rough concept for an “explorer/adventure” model in mind, to add to their model range.

Two years on and here we are, just weeks after testing two brand new, prototype MiniCat ‘520 Explorer’ models in Arctic Norway; boats we will this summer take to the East coast of Greenland on an expedition to explore this wild Arctic coast and make a short film about an early expedition to the same area in 1930.

For this expedition, we needed a portable boat but one that has the capacity for expedition gear, is safe, has some performance… ideally, custom made for expedition use. In the new MiniCat Explorer, we clearly have all this and our sea trials in Norway so far have proven we have all those qualities and, in addition, boats capable of genuine sporty performance too! Right out of the bag, we had almost 12 knots and can see the potential for far more if you want to go fast.

For me, this is the perfect boat for the task, and I cannot wait to further explore the possibilities with this new tool.

I am delighted to be working closely with the incredible team at MiniCat and am privileged to be a MiniCat Ambassador.”