Philip Beale, FRGS

Philip is an adventurer, sailor, writer and motivational speaker. He participated in his first international expedition, Operation Drake from Fiji to Papua New Guinea, in 1979 when he was 18 years old, following which he developed a strong interest in Asian, African and Middle Eastern cultures. In 1982 he graduated in Politics from the University of Hull and subsequently became an officer in the Royal Navy. He has led three international Kon-Tiki type expeditions, the first was the Borobudur Ship expedition, which involved sailing an Indonesian double outrigger vessel from Java to Madagascar and around the Cape of Good Hope to Ghana in 2003-4. Following the success of the Borobudur Ship expedition he was awarded the President of Indonesia’s award for Services to Indonesian Culture. In 2008-10 he launched the Phoenician Ship expedition which circumnavigated Africa in a reconstruction of a Phoenician ship, which was followed in 2019-20 by the Phoenicians Before Columbus Expedition–a trans-Atlantic expedition to show that the Phoenicians could have reached the Americas Before Columbus. He has written two books, Sailing Close to the Wind (with Sarah Taylor) and Atlantic B.C. Philip is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and belongs to the Scientific Exploration Society and is a member of their Honorary Advisory Board. He is Managing Director of adventure travel and wildlife company Pioneer Expeditions (www.pioneerexpeditions.com).