Devoted family man, “a guide and an inspiration” to his team and company, and intrepid explorer to the world, Hamish G.L. Harding, 58, who was claimed by the inky depths of the unforgiving Atlantic while on an expedition to reach the RMS Titanic, was an aviation tycoon who was one of a kind. The elements of nature were his to explore as he constantly pushed the limits while venturing into the sky and the blackness of the space beyond, and on land and the water-covered depths below.
The United Arab Emirates-based British businessman went to Peak School, Hong Kong, Kings School Gloucester and then Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, where he pursued degrees in the natural sciences and chemical engineering. After various IT technical and managerial roles in Europe and Asia, including a stint in Bengaluru, he found his anchor as founder of Action Group and chairman of Action Aviation, an aircraft brokerage company with its headquarters in Dubai. Harding was ‘no stranger in glory land’ as he soon set world records for: ‘the fastest circumnavigation of the earth via both poles; the greatest distance covered at full ocean depth’; and also ‘the greatest duration spent at full ocean depth’. He flew to space too onboard New Shepard, under the Blue Origin NS-21 mission, on June 4, 2022.
In many of his television appearances, especially in the UAE, his infectious enthusiasm was evident while describing adventures and their technicalities, which blended in with images from his social media accounts that captured his grit and determination.
Harding was a member and supporter of The Explorers Club, a multidisciplinary, professional society devoted to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration and resource conservation. With its headquarters in New York and supported by chapters dotted across the world — Harding was founder and chair of the Middle East chapter — the club has been supporting scientific expeditions of all disciplines. Members include James Cameron, Jane Goodall, Jeff Bezos, Walter Cronkite, and, stretching back in years, the Apollo 11 crew of Neil Armstrong, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin and Michael Collins. Others include the Mount Everest summit team of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, the first team to descend to the Mariana Trench Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard, and even U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
In an email to The Hindu, The Explorers Club President, Richard Garriott de Cayeux, said, “Hamish, an experienced explorer, was on this expedition [to the Titanic] for science research. There is still lots of science to conduct on the Titanic wreck before it dissolves. This ship captured the world’s imagination and there is a lot we can learn from seeing how a structure like [this] fares at 3,800 metres deep for 110-plus years.
“Hamish, a dear friend, [was] a supporter of exploration in general and an advocate for sustainability committed to fighting climate change. I saw Hamish last week in the Azores, Portugal at GLEX, our Global Exploration Summit, and I know he was very excited about this expedition. We’ve dove together on a series of dives to the Mariana Trench, the lowest point on earth. We were in a submersible designed to go three to four times deeper than the Titanic.”
Harding’s quiver of feats will not be complete without mentioning his connection with India. On September 22, 2022, in an interview with Dubai Eye 103.8 FM radio station, programme host Angelica Vartanyan, caught up with him to talk about his pivotal role in India’s cheetah reintroduction programme — “…I wouldn’t miss a thing like that” — where Action Aviation was involved in the airlift of the initial “tranche of cheetahs”, to use a Harding word coinage.
Pensively, in the first half of the chat, Harding was drawn into the details of an earlier conversation with the radio station by describing what had turned out to be a botched trip to visit the Titanic. The plan, he said, was to go back there next summer [June 2023].
Calling the cheetah reintroduction programme “very much of an Explorer’s Club thing”, Harding elaborated on how a friend of his, Dr. Laurie Marker, the founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia, had called him up asking him how she was to get the cheetahs to India — “Luckily, I had a friend here [in the UAE] who had a Boeing 747, and so I borrowed it.”
While there are mixed feelings about the OceanGate Titan mission, its five occupants and their tragic end, the last word could belong to Richard Garriott de Cayeux who said in the email, “While we should all appreciate efforts to innovate in order to push the boundaries of exploration, this must be done safely and sensibly. Perhaps some good can come of this, as Hamish and Paul-Henri Nargeolet [The Explorers Club member and one of the other passengers on the OceanGate Titan] would have wanted. From the vast deep water experience of our Club membership, we will work to help contribute to reasonable regulation and safety standards.”