Dale John Selvam - Chief Skipper

Dale is the Chief Skipper on board Sea Dragon. He manages everything on board the vessel from the engine and the rigging to the scientific sensors.  Dale, jack-of-all-trades, is from New Zealand - if there is a problem on board, this is the man to fix it.

He grew up as a big-wave surfer, and since then has made a career around the sea.  He has extensive sailing experience on board multiple yachts, over his 20-year sailing career. On land, he has served as product marketing roles for major surf companies.

Dale has sailed over 40,000nm on Sea Dragon alone.  He is an RYA certified Yachtmaster Oceans, Commercial Endorsed and Medical. Dale is also an experienced diver and certified PADI Divemaster.

Emily Penn - Programme Director / First Mate

Emily worked as Operations Manager and traveled over 20,000nm on the world record breaking bio-fueled Earthrace vessel during an international environmental campaign to promote the use of alternative fuels.  It was this journey across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans that opened her eyes to ocean degradation and challenges faced by small island states. Earthrace's carbon-fiber vessel was later donated to the Sea Shepard Conservation Society and, famously, sank in a collision with a Japanese whaling ship. Emily graduated from the University of Cambridge UK with a BA Honors in Architecture (1st) in 2008. Following her involvement with Earthrace in New Zealand, Emily sailed to Tonga to establish and implement a community wide coastal cleanup project in the remote Hapai Islands of Tonga with kiwi organization Sustainable Coastlines.  Her focus was on environmental education and tangible solutions with positive long term outcomes.

In California Emily spent time working with Algalita and 5 Gyres to further understand how plastic pollution is affecting the marine environment, assist in sample analysis and outreach. She now joins Pangaea Explorations to help co-ordinate operations and logistics working both on and off Sea Dragon. She is also a PADI certified diver and RYA Yachtmaster Offshore.

Forming and leading a team competing in the world's toughest yacht race, was a challenge in itself for Clive. The Southern Ocean tested him and his crew beyond anything they could have prepared for, challenging their resolve. Team Stelmar went on to win the Trans-Atlantic leg, capitalising on their experience of adversity, and turn it into victory. Clive tells of building the team, leading them against the odds and how they came through their challenges to achieve this result.

Since the Global Challenge Clive has gone on to lead other teams competing afloat and, having drawn out the leadership lessons from skippering Team Stelmar in the 2004-2005 Global Challenge, brings his leadership experience and skills to life in the classroom. Recounting the hard learnt critical leadership lessons, tough decision making and inspirational leadership in adversity to multinational, corporate audiences from South America, to Asia. He has also been project manager, skipper and consultant to a number of racing, refit and expedition sailing projects. Recently he have managed a refit in Poland, navigated a super-maxi, lead ski-expeditions in the arctic and is now proudly involved with the Pangaea Explorations project. Clive broader work can be seen here.

Dr. Spike Briggs, BSc, BM, FRCA - Chief Medical Advisor

Spike serves as principal medical advisor to Pangaea Exploration. With the full MSOS team, he provides direct at-sea medical support to the Sea Dragon crew. He is a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia in Poole, UK. He originally graduated with a degree in civil engineering and worked for ten years designing foundations for oil rigs, before returning to medical school. He has sailed all his life, including the Fastnet and racing around the world in 1996 as navigator. He is an instructor for advanced life support and advanced trauma life support courses, and he lectures at Southampton Medical School. He is an advisor, instructor and examiner on medical aspects of yachting for the British Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

Medical Support Offshore Limited (MSOS) was formed in 2006 by Dr Spike Briggs, Dr Campbell Mackenzie and Dr Tommo Tomson. The aims of the company are to provide medical training, medical kits and tele-medical support to the sailing community, which includes racing teams, adventure companies and private individuals.

The directors have very strong sailing backgrounds, and all have dealt with medical emergencies at sea, from the Solent to the Southern Ocean. This gives them valuable experience and authority when teaching sailors how to deal with life-threatening medical emergencies, and when giving advice over the telephone to sailing boats, far from help on the ocean.

Ian Buechele - Skipper

Ian has over 15 years experience skippering and managing yachts up to 72' with over 100,000 miles of sea experience. His experience profile ranges from the Pacific to the arctic circle adventure cruises off Svalbard. Ian holds a RYA Yachtmaster Oceans with commercial endorsement and a MCA Command 4 endorsement. For the past six years, Ian has run Buchele Marine Services as a freelance/Contract Yacht Skipper and vessel manager for clients such as Mike Golding Yacht Racing, Hellomoto (Conrad Humphries), Artemis Ocean Racing, Sea Schools (Sealine, Ambition Sailing), Tall Ships Organisation, Inspiring Performance. From 1998-03 Ian worked for Challenge Business as a Yacht and Training Skipper. He delivered international yacht race, skippered Spirit of Hong Kong global sponsorship events, corporate regatta hospitality events, crew training and offshore RORC racing including Transat 2002, Fastnet 2003 and lead Skipper on EDS Atlantic Challenge. He served as Corporate and Global Training skipper from 2002 to 2004. Ian led the Azores to Brazil leg of the current expedition.

Dr Marcus Eriksen - Science Leader

Marcus and Anna work on the forefront of marine plastics research. With Algalita Marine Research Foundation they have been instrumental in documenting the now well known "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" north of Hawaii. Their new effort with 5-Gyres is a long-term collaboration with Algalita, Livable Legacy and Pangaea Explorations to survey all five of the world's "gyres". They will lead the voyage for the Sargasso Sea of the Expedition to trawl for floating debris, and will analyze the debris for plastic content. The fish living in the area will also be analyzed for micro-plastics and toxins associated with persistent organic pollutants (POP's). The 5-Gyres team will then lead both the Southern Atlantic Expedition in late 2010, and onto the Southern Pacific in 2011.

Marcus Eriksen received his Ph.D. in Science Education from University of Southern California, and his M.A. and B.S. from the University of New Orleans. During this academic career Marcus worked many different jobs, ranging from Research Assistant in University of New Orleans Vertebrate Paleontology Lab to Educator and Exhibit Supervisor at the Los Angeles Zoo, Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, and New Orleans Audubon Park and Zoological Gardens. He teaches and conducts research in earth science, lectures at schools and museums and supervises an annual field course in paleontology in Wyoming. Currently he is AMRF's Director of Research and Education and hosts "Commando Weather," a series of public service announcements about the science of weather, for the Weather Channel. In 2006, he won the H. David Nahai Water Quality Award in Education, presented by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

In 2005, Marcus created Watershed Wonders, an educational video series packaged with curriculum materials for Junior and Senior High Schools. Episodes include "Bottle Rocket down the Mississippi River," "Coastal Wetlands and the Journey of Fluke," and "Cola Kayak and the Los Angeles River." Marcus recently published his first book, titled "My River Home" (Beacon Press, 2007) chronicling his experience as a US Marine in the 1991 Gulf War and a rafting journey 2000 miles down the Mississippi River on a raft of plastic bottles. Marcus was elected a National Fellow of the Explorers Club in 2010.

Anna Cummins - Science Leader

Anna Cummins has over 10 years of experience in environmental non-profit work, education, writing, and campaign development. She has worked in marine conservation, coastal watershed management, sustainabilty education, and high school ecology instruction. Anna received her undergraduate in History from Stanford University, and her Masters in International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute for International Studies.

In 2007 Anna joined the Algalita Marine Research Foundation as education adviser, conducting school outreach and giving public presentations on the plastics issue. With Algalita, Anna completed a month long, 4,000-mile research expedition studying plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre, and was the ground support for the JUNKraft project. Anna and her husband Marcus Eriksen recently co-founded Livable Legacy and the 5 Gyres project, a collaboration with Algalita and Pangaea Explorations to research and communicate plastic pollution in the worlds oceans. Anna was elected a National Fellow of the Explorers Club in 2010.

John Wright - First Mate

John is a qualified commercial yacht-master who has also developed the ability to work with and facilitate individual and group learning experiences in an outdoor or indoor setting. He has worked with groups of people from teenagers to senior managers using the outdoors as a means of personal and team development for much of my life. For the last 14 years he has run my own learning and development business. John is based mainly in the UK and have also worked on programs in Japan, Thailand, U.S.A. Spain, France, Belgium and Germany.

I have a Joint Honors degree from London University in Biochemistry and Zoology, a postgraduate certificate in education (P.G.C.E.) in Biology and Outdoor Education and a Masters in Human Resource Development. I taught Science in a secondary school for three years.

Krisztina Mendonca - Web Master

Krisztina is a veteran web developer with 15 years experience. She may be the only member of the crew who is not a sailor but is with The Sea Dragon in heart and spirit. Located in Central California, Kriszti runs her home-based web business outside of Yosemite National Park. Prior to becoming a freelancer, she was a professional services consultant and software instructor for Sybase Inc.

Rachel Morrison – Science Leader

Rachel is the newest member of Pangaea’s science team. She has always loved the ocean, and her interest in conservation and sustainability was piqued by an undergraduate research project on the overexploitation of the world’s marine fisheries. Learning about this tragedy of the commons motivated Rachel to better understand and mitigate human impacts on the ocean. Rachel earned her Bachelor’s degree in Marine Science with Distinction from Boston University in 2009. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Marine Biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California (http://sandinlab.ucsd.edu/members/rachelm/). Rachel’s graduate research focuses on understanding how fishing changes tropical coral reef fish communities and how such basic ecological information can be applied to sustainable fisheries management.

Rachel fell in love with sailing while crossing the Pacific on a tall ship in 2008, an experience that was also her first contact with the plastic trash accumulating in the North Pacific Gyre. Rachel then sailed with Sea Dragon in 2011 to document the health of coral reef communities across the Cook and Line Islands in the central Pacific. She now joins Pangaea Explorations as a scientist passionate about improving marine ecosystem management and conservation through research, outreach, and education. Rachel is also a NAUI Rescue Diver and an AAUS Scientific Diver.