My brother, Rob Mitchell, who has died at sea aged 64, spent most of his working life as an engineer but since 2014 had been cruising the Mediterranean as a lone yachtsman, living his dream.
He delighted in discovering more about the geography, history, customs and languages of the countries he visited, and as an engineer enjoyed the meticulous route planning and endless repair and maintenance that life on a yacht demands. He was on his way back to the UK when his yacht, Katniss, is believed to have sunk in a storm: his body was found off the coast of Portugal.
Prior to his transformation into a yachtsman, Rob spent most of his career in the UK with Thames Water, where he rose to be a senior project engineer. But before that, and afterwards, his work as a civil engineer took him around the globe, working for Halcrow, then Balfour Consulting, in the Seychelles, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, building dams, pipelines and wastewater treatment works.
Approaching retirement and having recently been divorced from his wife, Sarah (nee Malseed), Rob one day saw a marina full of yachts and thought “that’s what I’d like to do”. Always thorough in his preparation, he began a series of sailing qualifications, starting at Burghfield sailing club in Reading. Over three years, while he was working in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, he used every holiday to gain further qualifications, and in 2014, high on knowledge but low on sea miles, he did a practice circumnavigation of the British Isles before heading across the channel. If he had completed his fateful journey in the Mediterranean, the plan was to sell his yacht and settle in Malta.
Born in Liverpool to Bert, a miller, and his wife, Joyce (nee Leonard), Rob was the third of four children. He won a scholarship to Manchester grammar school and in 1973 went to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he majored in civil engineering. In 1986, after his degree, he attended Imperial College London and completed an MSc in civil engineering, before starting his lifelong career in that field.
He is survived by his daughter, Lucinda, and by two sisters, me and Sue.
