More and more luxury vessels that once hosted stars for vacations and fancy parties are becoming workspaces for scientists exploring the world’s seas and oceans. And there are also projects designed from the start to serve as research ships.
Without a doubt, if you look into the storage spaces of the kitchens on a superyacht, you expect to find refined ingredients and not tuna heads. Perfectly true under normal circumstances. But there is also the latter case.
Obviously, under special conditions. As happened last year, when Seahawk, the vessel built by Perini Navi in 2013, embarked on a cruise to the South Pacific.
Seahawk
And it’s no surprise at all. Because in 2019, Jurgen Friedrich, non-executive director and shareholder of the fashion brand Esprit Holdings, who commissioned the vessel, sold it to Adam Alpert. And he is a former director at Biotek, a company founded by his father, Norman, which produces and sells scientific instruments and associated software used in basic research in life sciences.
And even though in 2019 Adam ceded the business to Agilent Technologies for 1.165 billion dollars, he did not sever ties with scientists. Thus, he welcomed aboard his vessel, on the journey we mentioned, several marine researchers from universities in France and the USA, who, for ten days, tracked the migration patterns of tiger sharks in the Tuamotus Archipelago in French Polynesia.
And the tuna heads in the cold storage boxes served as bait for the locations where receivers were placed to capture critical data about this endangered shark species.
And it wasn’t the only experience of this kind for Seahawk. The yacht also hosted other scientists studying the migration patterns of other pelagic species, such as mantas, or contributed to coral reef research in the Lau Islands of Fiji. Stephen Edwards, one of those who serve as captain on Seahawk, acknowledges that the type of equipment scientists bring with them doesn’t always fit the stereotype of “superyacht perfection.”
“We are not a research vessel with scientific laboratories and special launch points. We are a standard sailing boat, so sometimes accommodating scientific equipment required a bit of improvisation that didn’t look like a superyacht. But this matters less. What is important is that we were able to contribute to an activity that holds significant weight for all of humanity,” says Edwards.
And this example is not singular. Because the trend of yachts being lent to scientists is becoming increasingly common nowadays as owners are more interested in not just making statements when it comes to promoting sustainability through their vessels.
Moreover, specialized cruise companies like Viking and Ponant have entered this game, with luxury expedition ships equipped with research laboratories. A subject about which, incidentally, you have more details in this issue.
Romania Part of the Explorer Superyacht Equation
Additionally, the fact that we are talking about a trend is perfectly highlighted by owners who, from the project phase, design hybrid research vessels. And here we have the example of Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Røkke.
He who intends to put his money to support the efforts of governments around the planet that are interested in its future. And this is because, he says, for objective reasons (or sometimes subjective), they cannot implement the necessary measures quickly enough to address the environmental crisis in the oceans. But also because he wants to give back to the sea the service it has done for him, as his wealth was initially built with a global business related to fishing.
His plan includes three points focused on practical solutions: climate change, plastics, and overfishing. And the centerpiece is a vessel we can also be proud of. Because it was built in Romania, in Tulcea, at the VARD shipyards.
We are talking about REV Ocean, which is already in Norway, to take its final shape in 2026. When it will represent not only the largest superyacht in the world but much more than that. For it is set to be fully equipped with multiple laboratories for various disciplines, as well as advanced scientific equipment, thus being able to easily fulfill three tasks: charter, research, and expedition.
REV stands for Research Expedition Vessel and will be able to host, in luxury conditions (compared to other scientific vessels), 60 scientists and a crew of 30 sailors. The ship itself is eminently green, with ultra-efficient diesel-electric propulsion and particle filters for exhaust.
Even the hull was designed to reduce underwater noise pollution. REV also benefits from surface plastic collection technology and can burn several tons of waste per day at very high temperatures to destroy harmful gases and create thermal energy.
But things go further. As we mentioned, REV is “a floating think-tank” designed to take scientists and technology experts to the most remote parts of the earth. In its final phase, it will benefit from a multitude of laboratories, including on submarines, a research and development hangar, 3D printing facilities, a welding workshop, and even editing studios for documentary filmmakers.
REV Tulcea
The underwater set includes, alongside the mentioned submersibles, autonomous vehicles, as well as eco-probes (a type of sonar) that can identify fish and even sediments beneath the seabed without taking samples. The keels are equipped with super-sensitive hydrophones to listen to marine mammals, while an advanced “trawl pumping” system collects live species up to 3,000 meters, allowing scientists to examine and release them unharmed.
Røkke has pledged another 150 million dollars for all costs in the first three years of operation – thus providing free access to researchers. Then, the foundation will also try eco-tourism as a source of funding. For 4 months a year, 60% of the accommodation is open to tourists interested in spending their vacation alongside scientists at sea, and for another 4 months a year, the vessel can be fully chartered by wealthy clients as a luxury yacht, equipped with its own “Discovery live channel.”
And the seriousness of the plans is also demonstrated by the fact that in anticipation of the first expedition, Røkke has brought Nina Jensen, the former CEO of WWF Norway, into the project. She is enthusiastic about how the collaboration is progressing.
Nina Jensen – CEO of REV Ocean
“I was slightly skeptical at first. I was very happy working for WWF – I actually spent most of a year deciding to take this position, the owner called almost every day. I realized he was serious, he really wants to make a difference. And you won’t save the ocean just through idealism. So I accepted. And everything is going great. If we agree that something is a great idea, then we can simply get to work. We don’t have complicated decision-making processes and we don’t have to run around looking for funding, we can simply do it,” says Jensen. And things are moving in this direction. The REV Ocean project includes the World Ocean Headquarters, which is to be built in Norway, the Plastic REVolution Foundation, which will create commercially viable solutions to the plastic problem, and the open-source Ocean Data platform. “There is so much information about the ocean, but there was no place to combine it all and turn it into useful, aggregated information,” says Jensen.
Ocean Xplorer
Other vessels of this kind are already in the water. After a two-year reconstruction at Damen, which included the addition of research laboratories as well as a media center designed by filmmaker James Cameron, OceanXplorer embarked on its inaugural journey in November 2020 to study the secrets of the Red Sea.
OceanXplorer
It was just the first adventure in a long, uninterrupted series since then. The 285-foot vessel is the flagship of OceanX, an ocean exploration initiative founded by American businessmen Ray Dalio and his son, Mark. It also enjoys the support of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.
Another example is Plastic Odyssey, which embarked at the end of 2022 on a three-year expedition across the world’s seas and oceans, aiming to combat plastic pollution in some of the most affected oceanic areas.
Plastic Odyssey
With the French beauty brand L’Occitane en Provence as the main sponsor, the 131-foot vessel is equipped with a research and development laboratory, recycling machines, and a recycling demonstrator.
The list can go on. And certainly, because we are dealing with extremely interesting topics, we will return in the future to present details from the most important projects of this kind.
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