We are delighted to announce our keynote for the Explorer Yachts Summit (13 November 2024) is broadcaster and explorer Monty Halls. Halls will be opening the summit, taking place at the Yacht Club de Monaco on 13 November 2024.
Halls, who is also a former Royal Marine, marine biologist, travel writer and leadership specialist, is best known for his hugely popular BBC series Great Escapes, where he lived on the West Coasts of Scotland and Ireland with his dog Reuben. He went on to present the multi-award-winning BBC NHU blue chip series Great Barrier Reef, The Fisherman’s Apprentice, again for the BBC, as well as series for Discovery and Channel 5. During this period he also led a number of scientific and research expeditions to remote locations such as Namibia, Malawi, Tamil Nadu, and Central America. These projects led to him being awarded the Bish Medal for services to exploration.
Since starting his own production company, Monty has produced and presented three series for Channel Four. WWII’s Great Escapes: The Freedom Trails broadcast to critical acclaim in late 2017, and in 2018 the whole Halls family featured in a poignant conservation mission to the Galapagos for the landmark series My Family and the Galapagos. A second series of My Family aired in 2020.
In his keynote for the Explorer Yachts Summit, Halls will talk about the changing role and responsibilities of the explorer in a modern world and how travel needs to be approached in a more holistic and mindful way.
One of Hall’s latest projects is LeaderboxBlue, a marine conservation project in a box which can be used by coastal communities anywhere in the world to help preserve their habitats. Participating yachts who join the scheme will be able to drop these boxes off in any location where they operate. Inside each box will be the tools for communities to design, plan and run their own conservation campaigns, and will include lesson plans to help educate and inform young people. Leaderbox Blue aims to ignite thousands of conservation projects across coastal regions worldwide within communities, institutions and organisations who would not otherwise have access to the skills and expertise required.
This month Hall has announced an exciting new partnership with HX (previously known as Hurtigruten Expeditions) entitled The Big Blue Project. Designed to empower individuals of all ages and from all walks of life to directly contribute to the protection of waterways and oceans, participants/communities will be provided with a specially designed ‘Big Blue Bag' that contains easy-to-follow protocols, enabling them to collect vital data on marine health, including microplastic pollution, species biodiversity, water temperature, and coastal debris. The collected data will be uploaded to a global, open-access database, contributing to vital research that informs conservation efforts around the world.
The Explorer Yachts Summit, held in collaboration with ExplorerYachts.com and in association with Damen Yachting, is the only international summit dedicated solely to the explorer yachting sector.
Attendees can expect an exciting lineup covering all areas within the sector. This year’s topics include an analysis of the explorer market backed up by BOATPro statistics; presentations on the Northwest Passage, ocean climate change and security and modern piracy; an update on record-breaking new scientific vessel REV Ocean, a fireside chat with the owner of trawler-turned-explorer Scintilla Maris, and much more.