Welcoming aspiring captains, scientists, and anyone who just needs the sea.
Global network of partner yachts and ships collecting ocean data, sea-surface conditions, marine wildlife, water quality, for marine scientists worldwide.
Portuguese marine research association studying cetaceans and ocean biodiversity along the Iberian and Macaronesian coasts. We're joining one of their field campaigns this summer.
International effort, hosted by the Nippon Foundation and GEBCO, to map the entire ocean floor by 2030. Crowdsourced bathymetry from sailors and ships everywhere.
UK marine conservation charity tracking whales and dolphins in European waters through citizen-science sightings from boats.
Crowdsourced mapping of marine pollution. Sailors and crews photograph ocean litter so it can be tracked, studied and cleaned up.
UK charity working to protect sharks, skates and rays worldwide. Their citizen-science programs gather sighting data from anyone on the water.
Citizen-science program from the University of Queensland monitoring coral reef health globally. Snorkellers and divers record coral colour codes wherever they go in the water.
EPFL's low-tech ocean science association. We'll be testing one of their sensing instruments aboard during the expedition.
Research partners and citizen-science projects we're collecting data for. Hover or tap a logo to learn more. We host real fieldwork. Looking for a boat? Write to us.
Six thousand nautical miles to start, on Little Cloud's first expedition. Then up the Caribbean islands to the Bahamas for the spring, down to Panama's San Blas islands in June, and Mexico the season after. We plan season by season and sail with the weather.
tap any leg to see the dates and enquire. You can switch the map style top-left
Always room for crew. Sailors, beginners, freedivers, surfers, families, scientists. If a leg catches your eye, write to us.
Whether you want to learn to sail a catamaran in the trade winds, build offshore miles, or simply spend a week island-hopping, write to us and we'll organise it!
We can support real research missions, additionally to just hosting them: multi-day offshore campaigns, day-trip dive ops, sample collection, instrument deployment. Berths for fieldwork are offered free of charge.
We've also got a properly powered tender with good autonomy. Film crews and documentary shoots welcome too, the dinghy could easily work as a chase boat.
Research-grade kit aboard, careful logs, written protocols. Bring your samplers, your instruments, your students, your cameras. We bring the boat, the dive team, and the engineering.
Write to us →We're heading south to live with the ocean, season by season. We're sharing the boat with whoever wants in, contributing to marine research wherever we can, and sailing where the weather goes. No grand plan. Just the next good weather window.
Every time we've taken people aboard, the boat has had a way of pulling everyone closer. Time passes differently when aboard and that's the part we most want to share.
We sail as a participating vessel in the International SeaKeepers Society's DISCOVERY Programme, logging sea-surface conditions, marine wildlife and more on every leg. Caring about the ocean was always going to be half the reason we're out here.
We've lined up partnerships with a handful of research groups already (see the wall at the top ↑), and we'd love to add more. If you're a researcher reading this, write to us.
Not a charter cat. She's a 43-foot daggerboard performance cruiser, fast, really fun, and a great boat to actually learn on. Lots of settings to play with and you feel the impact of each of them. She keeps moving when the wind barely does, and gets properly quick when it fills in. Daggerboards change how the boat behaves: with them down she points like a monohull. With them up, she draws under a metre and slips into anchorages most boats can't.
Kitted out for liveaboard life: solar, watermaker, lithium house bank, and the redundancy you want when land is two weeks away.
We sail with the lightest footprint we can manage. Renewable energy, careful waste, and spearfishing only what we eat. No more, no less. When the anchorage is good, we stay put.
Half retreat, half expedition: every leg has berths for people who want more than a suntan. Sail with us and you'll trim, steer, stand watches and drop the hook: you step off a more confident sailor, with miles that count. Or join the science side and run real protocols with our research partners: hydrophones, wildlife surveys, water sampling.
Families and friends welcome. You pick the leg, we make sure you leave with something.
Little Cloud is forty-three feet of daggerboard performance catamaran built for offshore passages. Not a charter platform, a proper cruising boat that handles like one. She keeps sailing in light airs where most cruisers reach for the engine, and gets properly fast when the wind fills in: we've already touched 18 knots downwind.
Big tanks for long passages: over 500 L of water and just under 800 L of diesel. Solar panels, a wind generator, lithium house bank, watermaker, all the redundancy we could need.
Plus a proper toy box on board: freediving kit, snorkel gear, surfboards, a wing foil setup, paddleboards, and a frankly overpowered dinghy.
A full sail wardrobe to match: square-top mainsail, jib, screecher, symmetric and asymmetric spinnakers, on fresh furlers. Properly sorted.
And honestly, showing you how all of it works is half the fun for us. A screecher or a symmetric spinnaker on a 43-foot cat sounds like a lot: give us a few days and you'll be flying them yourself.
Oriane
Sam
PADI dive instructor and freediver. Years teaching scuba in Fiji, Thailand and Egypt, several months interning on a marine conservation base, with a detour into social work in between. The first time Sam took her out sailing, she cried (the good kind), and was hooked on the spot. She holds her Swiss sailing licence, shares the helm and the watches, and runs all dive ops aboard.
Swiss environmental engineer (EPFL, MSc) and RYA Yachtmaster Offshore 200t, with a Swiss CCS licence and ASA instructor certifications (American Sailing Association 201, 203, 204 and 214 — qualified to teach keelboat sailing, coastal cruising, bareboat chartering and cruising catamarans). Over a decade of sailing instruction across the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Arctic. He loves to teach, is passionate about sailing, the ocean and this lifestyle, and is very stoked about adding the Pacific to the list. Happy to cook properly good meals in a moving galley.
Pick the prompt that fits, drop us a line. We answer everything, usually within a day or two of having signal.
An ocean crossing, a leg you saw on the route, island-hopping in the Caribbean. Tell us roughly when and what you're after, we'll send the details.
Write to us → learn the ropesSam is an RYA Yachtmaster Offshore 200t with a decade of teaching behind him. Whether it's your first bluewater taste or you're chasing your own qualifications, write to us.
Write to us → research & filmMulti-day campaigns, dive ops, instruments, samples, a dinghy that works as a chase boat. Berths for fieldwork are free. Film crews welcome.
Write to us →
