One Ocean Expedition 2025-2026 

A 12-month global voyage with the Norwegian tall ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl - a floating ambassador for the UN Ocean Decade. Combining sail training, ocean science, education and diplomacy to inspire action for a sustainable ocean. 

2025 - 2026

One Ocean Expedition



Statsraad Lehmkuhl departed Los Angeles, USA on October 7 and is now at sea en route to Vancouver, Canada, arriving October 17. Aboard are the Royal Netherlands Naval College.

Over the course of a year, the expedition will visit 27 ports across three continents. Several legs are open to the public - no sailing experience needed! Welcome on board!

Sailing route

At sea en route to Vancouver, Canada

Follow our journey

Sailing from Bergen to Los Angeles offered a rare opportunity to combine traditional observation with cutting-edge technology, mapping marine mammals across thousands of nautical miles.

Listen to the whales

Listening to the ocean

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits Vancouver, October 17–21, 2025

Ports

Vancouver, Canada

Truls Aaby was supposed to sail through the Northwest Passage, and when the plan had to change, he made a quick decision.

Just had to sail

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Following the success of the One Ocean Expedition 2021–2023, Statsraad Lehmkuhl is once again setting sail on a 12-month circumnavigation to promote ocean sustainability. The voyage will include 27 ports of call across three continents, combining ocean science, education and international cooperation to raise awareness about the crucial role of the ocean for a sustainable future.

On The One Ocean Expedition, Statsraad Lehmkuhl is filled with students, researchers and voyage crew who all work together to sail the big ship and gather experience and knowledge about the ocean.

Life on board

Tromsø, Norway

Bergen, Norway - Lerwick, UK

Reykjavik, Iceland

Nice, France 

Ponta Delgada, the Azores (Portugal)

Nuuk, Greenland

St. John's, Canada

Bermuda

Los Angeles, USA

Bermuda - Panama Canal 

Seattle, USA

San Fransisco, USA

San Diego, USA

La Paz, Mexico

Herradura, Costa Rica

Cartagena, Columbia

Herradura, Costa Rica - Panama Canal

Norfolk, USA

Cádiz, Spain

Brest, France 

Dublin, Ireland

Bergen, Norway

 are science coordinators on board Statsraad Lehmkuhl. Together with Francisco Amor Roldán they have structured and analysed all the sightings of marine mammals during the six months long voyage.

– All the visual observations are carefully written down by the persons standing at lookout and at the buoy watch, explain the researchers, and this allows us to compile a full map of marine mammals’ distribution along the route of the expedition, they write in their preliminary report.

On the map above all the sightings are marked. Whales as red squares, dolphins as blue, and turtles as green half-circles. Among the many observations were minke whales north of Iceland, humpback whales in Iceland’s Jökulfirðir fjord, as well as pilot whales and common dolphins.

Tall ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl is a silent ship. When sailing, there is no engine noise, perfect conditions if you want to eavesdrop on what's going on in the ocean. The ship is equipped with three hydrophones - underwater microphones that record sounds beneath the hull.

– Thanks to the hydrophones, we managed to listen to those marine mammals as well, the team writes.

Before analysing these recordings, the researchers carefully identified which sounds came from the ship’s own acoustic instruments, such as the ADCP measuring ocean currents and the echosounder - and which came from the animals themselves.

When they isolated the voices of the whales, the results were remarkable. In one recording, the humpback whale seen in the Icelandic fjord can be heard emitting powerful clicks and calls, echolocating to navigate and communicate. 

The sounds can be seen with colour variations on the spectrogram below. Click to play the video, and turn the sound up!

The pilot whales fill the water with whistles, visible as undulating patterns in the recording above; while clicks appear as sharp vertical lines. These recordings offer a vivid glimpse into the acoustic world that surrounds the ship, usually hidden from human ears.

By combining acoustic and visual sightings with environmental data, the researchers can explore how temperature influences the distribution of marine mammals.

The ship’s continuous measurements of sea surface temperature revealed distinct patterns on the leg from Iceland to Nice.

– Baleen whales like minks, and humpbacks are observed in lower temperatures, the team notes, while dolphins and sperm whales were mostly recorded in warmer waters of the Iberian margin and western Mediterranean.
Pilot whales, they add, were found across a wider temperature range, consistent with their global distribution.

Although the dataset is still growing, these early results suggest how environmental conditions influence where different species are likely to appear, and what scientists might expect to hear in future hydrophone recordings.

By combining direct observation and acoustic monitoring, Statsraad Lehmkuhl acts as a floating listening post for the ocean. From the Arctic waters north of Iceland to the temperate seas near southern Europe, the ship’s instruments and observers have revealed the ever changing soundscape of the sea.

This research not only helps scientists understand where marine mammals live, but also how they communicate and respond to changes in their environment. 

The work is not yet complete, as the expedition continues, every sighting, every sound, and every temperature reading adds another note to a growing symphony of the ocean.

What is now a large city of 2.6 million inhabitants - including its suburbs, began as a sawmill on Canada’s northwest coast as resent as 1867.

But people have lived in the Vancouver area for 8,000 to 10,000 years. 

The first Europeans arrived in this part of Canada only towards the end of the 18th century. In 1858, gold was discovered in a tributary of the Fraser River. More than 25,000 adventurous gold seekers came here, many of them from California, but most left again when there was no more gold to wash from the river gravel.

The city centre itself lies on a peninsula between Burrard Inlet to the north and the mouth of the Fraser River to the south, a natural place for a sawmill. When the Canadian Pacific Railway was extended to the peninsula in 1886, the city grew rapidly. 

It got the name Vancouver in 1886 too, after the Briton George Vancouver, who mapped the area in 1792.

To the west lies Vancouver Island, which protects the city from the Pacific Ocean and makes it an excellent harbour. Today, Vancouver is Canada’s most important port and one of the country’s largest industrial centers. 

The forest industry remains a key sector, along with mining, technology, culture, and tourism.

Less than half of Vancouver’s inhabitants have English or French as their mother tongue, which makes the city both unique and vibrant. People of British, German, and Chinese descent are the largest groups, but there are also many with roots in India and other Asian and European cultures.

Vancouver’s climate is shaped by its coastal location, with relatively cool summers and mild winters, though it is cold enough for snow to fall between November and March. 

Average maximum temperatures range from 6.6°C in December to 22.4°C in July. The city receives about 1,160 millimetres of precipitation per year, mostly between October and January.

All that rainfall and the mild winters create areas of temperate rainforest here, with conifer trees draped in moss and lichen.

Truls Aaby (25) studies geoscience at the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø. He is one of the students who should have been on board Statsraad Lehmkuhl through the Northwest Passage. When ice from collapsing glaciers in Greenland blocked the passage, he could have gone home together with the other students.

– I just had to sail, smiles Truls. I’ve wanted to sail for quite a while, and I had already set aside the time, so I decided to continue on. After all, sailing through the Panama Canal is a pretty cool experience, even if the trip wasn’t as cold as it was supposed to be.

Truls is from Asker, outside Oslo, and has done some sailing in the Oslofjord, but never on the open sea and never on a tall ship.

– My grandfather had a little 22-foot sailboat that my cousin and I used to sail around the islets back home. We did some regattas as well, and that’s when I first discovered the joy of sailing.

Truls is on board as voyage crew. That means he pays for accommodation and meals on board, but stands watch, handles sails and steers the ship, and is fully part of the onboard community.

– I really enjoyed being on board. You are welcomed so warmly, the people are great, and the food is amazing, says Truls. Right now we’re sitting right next to the galley, so of course I have to brag a little!

Over the course of a day, everyone in a watch team rotates through all the different tasks needed to sail Statsraad Lehmkuhl. Truls feels most at home when he is on lookout.

– Then you can stand in the wind, relax in peace and quiet, and just take in the view. Even if there’s not much to see, the sea changes a little from day to day. And maybe you’ll spot some dolphins or turtles or something like that, he says.

Since the route had to be changed, the leg from Bermuda to Los Angeles was planned at short notice, and only four others were able to join Truls as voyage crew.

– Luxury, says Truls. We’ve been a bit more like part of the professional crew, even though we’re still happy amateurs. We eat together with the crew, share coffee breaks at ten and three, and we’re allowed in areas where normally we wouldn’t be, like on the poop deck and in the aft mess.

Now only a few days remain until Truls disembarks in Los Angeles. Over four weeks he has experienced both the Caribbean and the Panama Canal. What was the best part?

– The Panama Canal, it’s really cool. And climbing the rig - very exciting. I haven’t been all the way to the top yet, but there are still a few days left, he smiles.

– And then there are the small things, like getting to know new people. Simply being part of a great community. That is really something special.

Would you like to come on board as voyage crew? Here are the legs you can join.