NAME: MIKE CROTHERS
BORN: 1966
LIVES: ASPEN, COLORADO
SPOUSE: MAYA CROTHERS
CHILDREN: 23-YEAR-OLD SON AND 21-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER
BOAT: DASHEW OFFSHORE FPB 97

Most of the owners who feature in these pages have steadily worked their way up to their dream boat. Not Mike Crothers – he has gone straight in at the top; from 0-60 in a split second. And he says he still has to deal with occasional grumbling from jealous bystanders. Let me explain.

Crothers is the proud owner of Iceberg, which at 33.83 metres is the largest Functional Power Boat (FPB) yacht designed by Dashew Offshore. The FPB programme assumed legendary status even as the boats were still being built, a byword for extreme seaworthiness based on Steve and Linda Dashew’s experience on the 24-metre ketch Beowulf.

Only 18 boats of varying lengths were ever built, and each one was a study in the art of extreme yachting. With their bare aluminium hulls, their status was secured even before they hit the water, and they remain incredibly sought after today.

For one of these to be your first yacht is a bit like landing a custom Land Rover Defender or an original Mercedes G Wagon as your first set of wheels. It is getting to the other side of the river without using any of the stepping stones. Naturally, some of those who had been taking their time to cross without getting wet feet were aggrieved.

“I started chasing this boat about nine years ago, but it was always too far away and too much money,” says Crothers. “Then, when I heard it was going to the Fort Lauderdale show in 2021, I locked it up with a strong offer. It was a good thing I did, because she was covered with people and was under at least one other offer.”

And there was really no previous boat that got you into yachting, I ask incredulously. “Previous boats?” he ponders. “Not really. I mean, we were playing around on lakes when I was younger. Then I chartered a bit in the Pacific. Other than that, Iceberg was the first boat.” He pauses before adding gleefully: “I’ve gotten some criticism from guys who can’t believe it.”

Not that Iceberg was in particularly great shape when he acquired her. The boat had languished under a previous owner who had little time to use her, and the cracks were beginning to show. “We spent two to three years cleaning it up and getting it back on its feet,” says Crothers.

“The systems worked, but because it hadn’t been used much for years, we had to update the electronics, upgrade the electrics and rebuild the plumbing, water intakes and anchor systems.”

It took around a $1 million (£740,000) to complete the refit. During that time, Crothers and his family explored Florida, the Bahamas and the northern Caribbean to get the measure of the boat. That way, they could easily return to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach for service work.

Then, in 2022, they ventured farther afield, passing through the Panama Canal. “Our goal has always been to go to the farthest reaches of the Pacific, where nobody goes, to find the most marine life, with few if any people. We spend a lot of time diving offshore reefs and remote atolls, where the charts are often wrong.”

You can hear the relish in his voice as he speaks about remoteness. It has been a consistent pleasure for him and his family, with whom he moved to the southern Rockies to pursue an outdoor life. It is clear that at least part of the motivation for heading to the Pacific is to avoid the clamour of everyday life and the people that generate it.

This year marks his third of being based in Papua New Guinea’s little -known waters. Operating off the grid, he has had his fair share of mishaps and, in fact, it’s hard to believe he ever went back for more.

“In that first year, the boat almost sank, and it was a race to get in to shore. The sea chest cracked and we were relying on external bilge pumps to keep the flooding down until we could get to Port Moresby. We couldn’t stop the boat – it had to be continuously moving.

“Then, in the second year, I cut my foot underwater on a really poisonous something-orother during a dive and ended up with a blood infection. Massive wounds appeared all over my body as the infection crept up my leg. They were two days away from cutting off my foot when I was evacuated to Cairns.

"Our goal has been to go to the farthest reaches of the Pacific to find the most marine life, with few people"

“This year we attempted our third visit to the region when a massive storm hit. It’s rare in Papua New Guinea to have such a big one, and even rarer to see it just park overhead. We were hiding out in some fjords in the Alotau area, waiting to see if we could get out to the BudiBudi islands 150 miles offshore, where hundreds of people were cut off.”

Far from being just another storm, this was Severe Tropical Cyclone Maila – the first in the region for nearly 20 years and by far the fiercest ever recorded there. At the centre of the storm, pressure plummeted to 924hPa and gusts hit 160 knots (295km/h). It caused severe storm surges around the low-lying Pacific islands, landslides on the higher ground and widespread destruction of buildings and trees.

“The word about the situation in Budibudi started getting around,” Crothers says. “A guy called the Flying Doctor tried to get in, but the weather was terrible and he couldn’t land his float plane. We were really the only boat that could get there in those conditions.

We had three-to four-metre seas going into the remnants of a cyclone that was fading, but still with 30- to 40-knot winds. It was a 23-hour rough ride in there, but luckily, we’re not very top heavy and Dashew boats are great for cutting through bad conditions.”

They had stocked up with hundreds of what Crothers calls “care packages” – food and water, plus vital medication and fuel, after a quick local fundraiser. In all, it amounted to more than two tonnes of supplies, all painstakingly carried aboard and stowed for the passage.

“We got in and the islanders were so excited,” he says. “A chunk of the island had been washed away with the houses on it, and the cyclone had covered the island so all the gardens were wiped out. All the big breadfruit trees had been blown down. They were running low on supplies, had no more gas [petrol] and were in rough shape.

This is a Pacific atoll as remote as almost any there is, with no hint of a formal harbour. A few hundred inhabitants live in small houses with corrugated-iron roofs – coral sand beach on the lagoon side and tangled greenery on the other. The only way to get the supplies ashore was in Iceberg’s tenders, and a handful of local skiffs, using their last drop of fuel.

After ferrying supplies ashore, Crothers and his crew brought a number of elderly and infirm islanders aboard, plus t wo heavily pregnant women, for transfer to a clinic on Woodlark Island, 40 miles to the west. They eventually ran into a group of doctors sent in by the government on Woodlark and a Papuan naval vessel a few days later on another remote atoll on the way there. It seems probable that his intervention saved lives, though he’s reluctant to say it.

Where some might have seen this as the final straw – strike three on a region that is notoriously difficult to navigate – Crothers is brimming with a mixture of pride and satisfaction. Not only did his much-loved vessel show her true mettle, but he was able to really help.

“This was a region we were trying to get to for years,” he says. “It went from being another busted trip to being able to help. You know, we love the Papuan people, so it was just a great opportunity. We’ve got to know a lot of people.”

When I finally catch up with Crothers, he is already in Fiji, 2,000 nautical miles south-east, on the hunt once again for remoteness and solitude. “In many Pacific countries, you have to check in to the middle island,” he explains.

“Most sailors are going from east to west, so rarely do people go check in and head back east. One of the things we do is hit the far-eastern areas of some of these countries. We’re waiting on weather now, heading for the southern Lau group.”

Other favoured spots include the far northern and southern fringes of the Solomon Island chain, which sprawls across a vast area of sea between Fiji and Papua New Guinea. And he waxes lyrical about waiting for weeks for a three-day window to get out to the remote nor thern lagoon of New Caledonia.

“If the weather wasn't terrible and unpredictable you'd have liveaboards and diving schools everywhere,” he says. “It’s hard to find places where it's not all covered up. It’s also a challenge to find a crew that’s willing to disappear for nine months of the year. It does take some special people!”

A graduate of Wall Street and co-founder of a successful private equity business, Crothers might reasonably be expected to be putting in 80-hour weeks still. But he’s very clear sighted about it. “Luckily, I have a great team, so I’ve stepped farther and farther back over time,” he says. “I’m on the phone with them a couple of times a week , mostly telling them about mistakes that I’ve made.”

He’s done his time, though, moving from investment banking into private equity with his stepfather and thence on to a partnership in his own business. He focused on what he describes as “lower-middle market, highly regulated industries” – what I discover to mean smaller founder-owned businesses. They are active in field including homecare, autism and developmental disabilities, among others.

“ We buy at $2 to $3 million EBITDA in industries where [most buyers] would want to buy something bigger, because it’s technical and highly regulated,” he says. “ We also buy from founders that retain some equity, and it can take longer than 10 years to build out sometimes.” He laughs. “ There’s a very select group of lenders that we work with, who can withstand a bit of pain.”

These days, the only all-nighters Crothers is pulling are on watch from the helm of Iceberg. His 23-year-old son has gone to college, which means he’s only really available during summer holidays, and his wife Maya and younger daughter join when they have the time. But that doesn’t seem to be dampening his appetite for adventure with the crew.

As we talk , it becomes clear that this compulsion to go off-piste is bordering on the existential for him. “I find the most civilised people are the ones furthest from civilisation,” he says.

“Many of these people have decided to live remotely; they have Starlink and are up with what’s going on in the world.” There’s such a tone of admiration in his voice that it wouldn’t be hard to imagine him joining them.

First published in the September 2026 issue of BOAT International. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.