Bob Shepton

The Reverend Bob Shepton has been a Royal Marines officer, a full-time youth leader in the east end of London, and chaplain to two schools. He went to Cambridge and later to Oak Hill Theological College and was ordained in Salisbury Cathedral 1961. He discovered and developed the limestone cliffs of Lulworth and Portland and introduced them to climbers. He wrote the sections about these cliffs for Dorset (Climbers Club guide) 1978. He also completed a number of rock-climbing first ascents on the Great and Little Ormes, Llandudno, with schoolboys from St. David’s College. Bob organised and led ‘The First School to sail across the Atlantic and Back – Portland UK to Portland (Maine) USA’. He has sailed round the world in a Westerly 33-foot sailing boat with school leavers from Kingham Hill School where he had been Chaplain. This journey was via Antarctica and Cape Horn – ‘The First School Group to sail Round the World’. More recently Bob has led several Tilman type expeditions to Greenland and arctic Canada, sailing and climbing from the boat. He has undertaken 15 Atlantic crossings, and 13 visits to the Arctic. His expeditions have made some sixty first ascents of mountains and rock faces in Greenland and arctic Canada. Bob and the members of his Greenland Big Wall Climbing Expedition of 2010 were awarded the Piolets d’Or in 2011. He has transited the North-West Passage east to west (2012) and west to east (2013) i Bob’s boat Dodo’s Delight is the only fibreglass boat to have transited the Passage both ways. Reverend Shepton has been awarded the Blue Water Medal, the Tilman Medal (twice), the Goldsmith Medal for Exploration, the Ocean Cruising Club’s Barton Cup (twice), the OCC’s Vasey Vase (three times), the Vice Commodore’s Medal (three times). He was voted Yachtsman of the Year (UK) 2013 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. Bob has written three books Addicted to Adventure, High Latitude Sailing, and Addicted to ore Adventure is now the third. Bob Shepton is a Reverend, and an Arctic Explorer. He has sailed some 149,000 nautical miles and made quite a number of first ascents of mountains and rock climbs.