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 arrived in San Diego November 11, and will stay until November 16. It is now "Blue Tech Month" in San Diego, and Friday, November 14, a workshop will be held on board, followed by an open-ship event on Saturday.

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

Sailing route

Docked in the port of San Diego

Follow our journey

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits San Diego, November 11 - 16, 2025

San Diego, USA

Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits San Francisco, November 3–7, 2025

San Francisco, USA

In addition to being a research vessel and sailing university, Statsraad Lehmkuhl serves as a floating meeting place where politicians, business leaders, researchers, and community actors come together to share knowledge and find solutions. That is the ship’s main mission these weeks.

Three weeks focusing on the future

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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 

Vancouver, Canada

Seattle, USA

Ensenada, Mexico

La Paz, Mexico

Herradura, Costa Rica

Cartagena, Columbia

Herradura, Costa Rica - Panama Canal

Norfolk, USA

Cádiz, Spain

Brest, France 

Dublin, Ireland

Bergen, Norway

What is now the city of San Diego was the place where European explorers first arrived and later settled after reaching California.

But, as in the rest of the United States, Indigenous peoples had inhabited this area for thousands of years. The Kumeyaay people lived in small villages. One of these, Kosa’aay, was located in what is now San Diego’s Old Town. Kosa’aay was home to 30–40 families living in pyramid-shaped houses.

The first Europeans to arrive in San Diego were the Portuguese explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and his crew aboard the ship San Salvador. He claimed the bay for the Spanish Empire in 1542 and named the place San Miguel.

In November 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno mapped the areas now known as Mission Bay and Point Loma. He renamed the site after the Catholic saint Didacus, better known as San Diego de Alcalá, giving the city the name it still bears today.

In 1769, the Spanish built a fort on Presidio Hill. They also established a mission, but it was moved a few kilometres after the Kumeyaay destroyed it in 1775. They did not welcome the Spanish takeover of the lands where they grew and gathered food.

When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, San Diego became part of the Mexican province of Alta California. The fort on Presidio Hill was abandoned, and the mission station closed. The mission lands were given to former soldiers, and a small town – a pueblo – developed beneath the hill.

However, conflict between the Kumeyaay and settlers continued, and many left the town.

By 1838, only 100–150 inhabitants remained, and San Diego lost its status as a pueblo. In 1846, the United States went to war with Mexico, and the same year, U.S. forces took control of several towns in Alta California – including San Diego, though only after heavy losses in what is now known as the Battle of San Pasqual.

After peace was declared in 1850, San Diego became the county seat of San Diego County. The original settlement under Presidio Hill was far from the harbour at La Playa, and during the 1860s, the town gradually moved toward the sea - where downtown San Diego is located today.

Like San Francisco, San Diego grew rapidly during World War II, driven by the expanding defence industry. The growth continued after the war, and by 1950 the city’s population had doubled compared to 1930, reaching more than 300,000 residents. 

Fishing was also an important part of San Diego’s economy, and a reason for people to come here for work, and in the 1970s the city was known as “the tuna capital of the world.”

During the late 1970s, jobs in the defence and aerospace industries declined, and San Diego shifted its focus. The city began to invest heavily in tourism and research. Today, the University of California San Diego (UCSD) is the city’s second-largest employer.

San Diego’s landscape is rugged and diverse, shaped by hills, and canyons cutting trough flat plateaus known as mesas.

Summers are warm and winters mild, and the landscape is covered with drought-resistant trees and shrubs. Most of the city’s modest annual rainfall,  249 millimetres a year, falls between December and March. The normal maximum temperature ranges between 19 and 21°C in winter, and 22 to 25°C in summer and autumn. 

Like San Francisco, San Diego often experiences a band of fog along the coast.

Normal maximum temperature in November: 22 °C
Normal rainfall in November: 20 mm

list of all the songs written about San Francisco

, 247 at the moment - and it keeps growing. It’s no wonder, the city is perhaps the most mythologized in all of the United States. Once the hippie capital of the 1970s, it is today a global center for computer science and technology.

Like every city in the U.S., San Francisco began modestly, in the latter half of the 18th century. Long before Spanish explorers arrived in 1769, indigenous peoples had lived in the area for more than 3,000 years.

San Francisco Bay is a natural harbor. In 1776, the Spanish established a mission there, Mission San Francisco de Asís

and later built a fort on the southern side of the strait where the Golden Gate Bridge now stands.

The Spanish controlled the region until 1821, when Mexico gained independence. The First Mexican Republic ruled over and area much larger than today’s Mexico, encompassing all or parts of California, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

Under Mexican rule, the area was opened to settlers, and a small community developed near the best anchorage inside the bay. It was called Yerba Buena – “Where the Good Herbs Grow.”

In 1841, the Hudson’s Bay Company established a trading post in the bay, selling goods imported from Vancouver, salmon, timber, and British industrial products, in exchange for hides and tallow.

In 1845, the United States annexed Mexico, and the following year the Mexican-American War broke out. When the war ended in 1848, the U.S. had taken control of Mexico’s entire northern region. California had already been invaded in 1846, and in 1847 Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco.

Freshwater and timber were scarce, and San Francisco remained a small town of around 1,000 inhabitants until gold was discovered in California in 1848. Within a few years, the California Gold Rush swelled the population, numbering 24,000 by the end of 1849.

Despite the lawlessness and crime that the fortune seekers brought with them, the city developed rapidly. In 1869, San Francisco was connected to the national railway network, and in 1873 the city introduced its famous cable cars. By 1890, the population had surpassed 300,000, and the future looked bright.

Along the U.S. West Coast, two tectonic plates meet, massive, rigid slabs of the Earth’s outer shell. making the entire region prone to earthquakes. The Pacific and North American plates slide past each other

along the San Andreas Fault, they get stuck, strain builds up, then suddenly releases.

On April 18, 1906, northern California was struck by a devastating one, the Great San Francisco Earthquake, reaching a magnitude of 7,9. 

In San Francisco, buildings collapsed and gas lines ruptured. A massive fire raged for days. Thousands of people lost their lives, and more than half of the city’s 400,000 inhabitants were left homeless.

Reconstruction progressed quickly. The Bank of America generously issued loans to those who had lost their homes, and by 1915 San Francisco was hosting a World’s Fair, a showcase of the city’s recovery.

During World War II, the shipbuilding industry expanded dramatically, and the population grew rapidly.

San Francisco’s harbor area proved unsuitable when large container ships replaced the cargo vessels of the 1950s and ’60s. Shipping operations moved across the bay to Oakland. With the ships went many industrial jobs, and between 1950 and 1980 the city lost more than ten percent of its population.

It was during this period that San Francisco became the gathering place for America’s counterculture. Hippies flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district, while the gay culture found a home in the Castro.

Since the 1990s, it is the internet, more than counterculture, that has defined San Francisco. During the dot-com boom, a large number of startup companies were founded in the city. Many of them are now among the most successful in the world, helping to reinvigorate the local economy alongside finance and tourism.

What is known as Silicon Valley lies south of San Francisco Bay, home to world-famous companies such as Apple, Intel, Nvidia, and many more.

Today, the city also is a hub for research in medicine and biotechnology, as well as for culture. Netflix, and the animation studios Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasfilm Animation, and Pixar all have their headquarters in San Francisco. The Academy of Art University is the largest art and design school in the country.

The fog that often drapes the bay and the city is legendary. It forms when moist ocean air is cooled by cold deep water that rises to the surface as ocean currents meet the coastline.

The fog and proximity to the sea give the city a cooler climate than its latitude suggests. Temperatures vary little throughout the year, but San Francisco is far from a freezing city. The maximum temperature ranges from 14-16°C in winter to 19-21°C in summer and early autumn.

The city receives about 581 millimeters of precipitation annually, mostly between November and March. June through September are typically bone dry.

Normal maximum temperature in November: 17.6°C
Normal rainfall in November: 66 mm

On October 22, Statsraad Lehmkuhl doced in 

, marking the start of three weeks filled with lectures, workshops, and meetings, all centered on the future of the ocean. First in Seattle, then San Francisco, and finally San Diego. 

The main focus: Ocean innovation and sustainability.

Local schools are also invited to take part - as part of the 

The project encourages students and teachers to explore ocean-related topics such as marine science, climate change, and sustainability. Schools around the world are participating and sharing their findings with one another.

 in San Francisco developed the educational materials and will present the project and its results so far during a major event on board when Statsraad Lehmkuhl visits the city on November 4.

, beeing both a landmark and a meeting point during 

 in Bergen, Norway. The original conference opened for the first time on April 15, 2023, when Statsraad Lehmkuhl returned to her home port after the 20-month-long first One Ocean Expedition.

, an alliance of companies working with maritime innovation. Representatives from One Ocean Week Bergen and from Norwegian business, politics, academia, and tourism are also contributing to the conference.

– Over the last decade we've built really shared industry and business connections with Norway. Finding opportunities for partnership, finding opportunities for sharing innovation. And the Statsraad Lehmkuhl is the connector, says Joshua Berger, CEO of Washington Maritime Blue.

– Seattle and Bergen have been sister cities for 60 years, and the close relationship between the two provides a strong foundation for further collaboration. One Ocean Week Seattle gives us a unique opportunity to strengthen ties that can open doors to new partnerships, trade, and value creation.

All of Seattle will notice what’s happening that week. Statsraad Lehmkuhl was accompanied by a flotilla of other vessels when she sailed into the harbor on the morning of October 22. On Saturday morning, the public is invited on board for an open-ship event and celebration. Both crew and researchers will be there to present and explain their work.

Statsraad Lehmkuhl departs Seattle on October 27 and sets course for San Francisco. Washington Maritime Blue remains on board, continuing its work during the southbound voyage.

The ship will dock at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, November 3, and on Tuesday, the deck will be filled with students participating in the "Message in a Bottle" event.

" takes place, a full-day conference bringing together leaders from science, policy, business, and innovation to develop concrete solutions for a healthy and sustainable ocean.

On Friday, November 7, Statsraad Lehmkuhl continues south to San Diego. On this leg, the 

The organization was launched during One Ocean Week 2023 in Bergen, and is a global network connecting science, industry, technology, policy, and investors to accelerate sustainable ocean action.

On board, participants meet for discussions and workshops - while also handling sails, standing lookout, keeping fire watches, and taking the helm.

Statsraad Lehmkuhl arrives in San Diego on November 11, during 

, a cluster of companies developing new maritime technologies.

On Friday, November 14, a workshop will be held on board, hosted by TMA BlueTech and the 

, followed by an open-ship event on Saturday, organized in collaboration with the 

On Sunday, November 16, Statsraad Lehmkuhl leaves San Diego, bound for La Paz, Mexico.

 will combine academic work with sailing duties. The organization is a collective of actors working to develop models for economic growth that restore the environment, support local communities, and promote health and well-being.

Statsraad Lehmkuhl will arrive in La Paz on November 24, before continuing toward Herradura, Costa Rica, on November 26. 

On this leg, anyone can sign up to join the voyage as trainee crew. More information is available here if you’re interested.