Come aboard

You are a student or researcher in the marine sciences or environmental studies?

You want to develop a one-off or medium to long-term project aboard the Fondation Pacifique sailboats as part of its oceanic expeditions?

You would like to know more about the technical and logistical aspects of the sailboats in order to develop such a project?

You need to come onboard because your research requires it or your project permits the instalment of equipment on board?

For these questions and many more, please contact us to explore your concept and transform your ideas into a high impact project: contact@fondationpacifique.org

With a decidedly humanitarian vision, since its creation, the Fondation Pacifique embodies solidarity and complementarity through concrete, high impact achievements to the benefit of oceans and humans at an international level.

The Fondation Pacific’s ambition is to help the oceanographic community by making its expedition sailboats available to the advancement of science. Unlike conventional oceanographic research vessels, these are not floating laboratories but multidimensional logistics platforms capable of carrying very high-tech equipment for implementation both in the context of oceanic crossings as well as for coastal routes.

Depending on the nature of your project, you can:

  • board alone or with a group of 4-6 people for a specific period of time and conduct your own scientific activities using equipment that you board for the occasion.
    Example: Researchers from the University of Queensland’s Remote Sensing Research Center (RSRC) in Brisbane spent a month aboard Fleur de Passion in 2017 on the Great Barrier Reef to conduct 59 transects on 17 selected coral reefs and collect 12,000 images as part of a project to develop a coral reef mapping tool on a global scale
  • install automated data collection or measurement equipment on the ship to be supervised by the resident scientific coordinator according to your protocol.
    Example: the Aquatic Physics Group from the F.-A. Forel Department of Environmental Sciences and Water at the University of Geneva has installed on board Fleur de Passion a solar-panel powered greenhouse gas analyser that continuously monitors the methane concentrations and carbon dioxide on the surface of the oceans, as well as an isotope analyser operating on the same principle.
  • provide measurement or sampling equipment to be used by the scientific coordinator onboard according to your protocol.
    Example 1: The BarcelonaTech Bioacoustic Applications Laboratory entrusted the Fleur de Passion crew with two hydrophones, one manual used at anchor and the other towed in navigation, as part of a long-term noise pollution mapping programme.
    Example 2: The Oceaneye association in Geneva entrusted the crews of Fleur de Passion and Mauritius with surface water sampling equipment as part of a meso and micro plastic pollution mapping programme. Once collected and packaged, the samples are then sent to Oceaneye for analysis.

Since each scientific project is unique and may require the installation of special equipment, logistics are discussed on an individual and bilateral basis between the technical managers of the Fondation Pacifique and the programme initiators.

The same individualized logic applies to boarding costs, which depend on the nature of the project. By virtue of its not-for-profit status, the Fondation Pacifique aims to make its sailboats very accessible, compared to conventional oceanographic research vessels.