The inspiration for the Explorer

How Explorer came to be

In 2000 I [Mukti Mitchell] was aboard the 63ft Ketch ‘Silurian’ bound for the Azores from Florida. One watch, the Captain, Kit Rogers, told me about a Russian he had met in Gibraltar, who had built a 12ft yacht entirely out of scraps, and was sailing around the world.

I was so inspired by the story that I decided to build my own boat, and set about there and then designing the Explorer and the Swing Bulb Keel. With encouragement from Kit’s father, Jeremy Rogers, builder of the famous Contessas, and many others, Explorer became a reality and then a commercial enterprise.

When David Harding was writing the article for the March 2005 issue of Practical Boat Owner magazine, I did some research on the internet, and found an article and some photos of Evgeniy and his boat, ‘Said’ (meaning ‘friend’ in Arabic). I was interested to note that ‘Said’ is remarkably similar to the Explorer, and has the same displacement, though being 3ft (0.9m) shorter. And Said has sailed across the Atlantic, through the Straits of Magellan, and across the entire Pacific. Which shows the capability of a small vessel if well designed.

Read the Evgeniy article by Bernie Harberts here