One Ocean Expedition 2025-2026 

2025 - 2026

One Ocean Expedition 

Statsraad Lehmkuhl arrived in Ponta Delgada, the Azores,  July 2, and will stay until July 8. 

Next port is Nuuk, Greenland, arriving July 29.

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

Sailing route

Docked in the port of Ponta Delgada

Follow our journey

After the last encounter with whales, nobody really felt like swimming anymore.

Whales - living and dead

The researchers on board Statsraad Lehmkuhl have a wide variety of tools. The "Bongo-net" is a piece of scientific gear that is used in sampling tiny organisms living in the upper layers of the ocean.

Sampling life in the upper ocean

Long, narrow, and equipped with fins like the fish it’s named after, the Manta Trawl is used to reveal how much microplastic is floating in the sea.

Ocean research

Trawling for plastics

Latest news

Latest videos

Following the success of the One Ocean Expedition 2021–2023, Statsraad Lehmkuhl is once again on an international voyage to promote ocean sustainability. Over the course of 12 months, the expedition will visit 27 ports across three continents, including a historic transit of the Northwest Passage. 

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

Pond Inlet, Greenland  

Gjoa Haven, Canada

Cambridge Bay, Canada 

Whittier, Alaska USA 

Vancouver, Canada

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

On Thursday, June 26, Statsraad Lehmkuhl was drifting about a week’s sail away from the next port, 

– We are now far enough ahead of schedule to afford ourselves to let the wind catch up with us, instead of continuing to chase it. We have therefore been almost without any wind since yesterday afternoon, just barely managing steering speed under all the sail, wrote Captain Marc Seidl in his daily report.

Taking it easy turned out to be a smart move. A pod of whales appeared around the ship, and it was nice not to be busy pulling ropes and handling sails. Everyone on board had time to enjoy the sight.

– We have had several visits from Sei whales who have shown their interest and curiosity for us, Marc continued in his report.

Sei whales are large animals, 15-20 meters long and weighing up to 30 tons. They resemble Bryde’s whales and fin whales, but unlike those, the Sei whale does not lift its tail fluke out of the water when diving. 

This was easy to observe from Statsraad Lehmkuhl, as you see on the photos of the pod taken both from the ship and with a drone.

Sei whales belong to the group of baleen whales and therefore don’t have teeth like dolphins and belugas. In the mouth, the Sei whale instead has about 700 baleen plates, which both look and function like the bristles of a brush.

With the baleen, they filter out krill, copepods, plankton, small fish, and squid. Over the course of a day, they can consume up to 900 kilos of food in this way.

Sei whales stay in small groups of three or four, and swim slowly at the surface with open mouths when hunting for food. But they are fast and can reach speeds of 27 knots if needed, faster than most other whale species.

There are Sei whales in nearly every ocean, exept in the far north and south. They don’t like areas close to ice, but thrive best in warm waters.

Only two days after the encounter with the Sei whales, the lookout once again rang the bell in the bow of Statsraad Lehmkuhl.

– Today two bells rang out for what was assumed to be a whale carcass on the port side. The course was changed to pass closer to confirm this - which we did - and two large sharks circled it. They had probably already eaten their share, and after taking a closer look at the ship, they and the whale disappeared in our wake, Marc wrote in his Captain's report.

Sharks prefer to catch their prey alive - none of them feed exclusively on carrion, but even a great white won’t say no if it comes across a dead whale.

As the photos taken by Matteo Baratella show, it’s not easy to recognize that the white mound floating in the ocean was once a whale. The white mass is blubber, the thick layer of fat that both keeps whales warm and serves as an “emergency ration.” But Marc has seen dead whales before.

– That was the big happening of the day so far, and a swim stop is not in high demand anymore, he finishes his report, presumably with a smile.

The scientific name of the Bongo-net is WP2, but it looks a bit like a bongo drum, with a large round opening to which a long sausage-shaped net is attached.

– It was called Bongo-net during a quiz we had on board, and the nickname "Bongo" has stuck, says Eva Garrido. She is a PhD student at the University of Tromsø, and is using the net in her work on zooplankton system dynamics.

Zooplankton are tiny animals that drift in the ocean. The word comes from Greek: zoo meaning "animal" and plankton meaning "drifter". Unlike phytoplankton, which are tiny plants, zooplankton cannot make their own food. So they eat other organisms, usually phytoplankton but also other zooplankton.

The net is used during the research stops when the ship is stationary.

– We are not towing it on the surface like the 

, Eva says. The goal is to sample the upper part of the water column, but in a vertical way, she explains. This method provides a snapshot of what organisms are living in the top 200 meters.

This depth range is chosen deliberately, this is where the zooplankton lives, at least most of the time.

– They do what we call vertical migrations. They go deep during the day to avoid being seen by predators during daylight hours, and ascend to the surface during the night, Eva explains.

She is studying copepods in particular, a group of zooplankton that form the foundation of the marine food web in the North Atlantic. Copepods not only support fish populations but are also highly responsive to environmental change.

– I’m studying a species named "Calanus finmarchicus", which is the most abundant in the North Atlantic and really important for fisheries, Eva says.

To capture them effectively, the Bongo-net used has a mesh size of 180 microns, ideal for filtering out the zooplankton while letting smaller particles pass through. The sampling is also coordinated with other equipment like the CTD which records the physical properties of the water, allowing researchers to correlate biological samples with environmental conditions.

Below are images taken when the contents of the Bongo-net is collected. The small red dots are zooplankton. All Photos: Matteo Baratella.

Once the plankton samples are brought aboard, Eva preserves them in alcohol for later laboratory analysis.

– Look into the microscope and identify different species and different groups, and then look at the community composition as a whole, Eva explains. Which species were there and at which time and how this relates to the different water masses that we observe.

Researchers are especially interested in how community structures change in response to physical ocean features like eddies and fronts. These dynamics offer clues to how organisms adapt to varying environments and help predict how future changes, like ocean warming, might affect marine ecosystems.

Some samples are also used for genetic analysis. The researchers are interested in how the phytoplankton community relates to the whole plankton community.

Even at this early stage, interesting patterns are emerging.

– So far we have seen that the copepod sizes decrease when we go from north to south, Eva says. The copepods were much larger in the north part of the Atlantic, north of Iceland we encountered some truly Arctic species, Eva says.

Further south the sampling revealed smaller but more numerous individuals, important information when it comes to taking care of the ocean.

– When we do science, we provide knowledge which could be used in different ways. There is people that will maybe try to make money out of it, and there is lots of people that will try to preserve it. To have more marine protected areas. This type of studies helps to better understand the ecosystem dynamics and to better predict how they will do in the future, Eva concludes. 

It’s easy to forget when watching sailors haul ropes, climb masts, and scrub decks, but Statsraad Lehmkuhl is in fact a modern research vessel - disguised as a tall ship. 

Beneath the bow lies a custom-built underwater pod, nicknamed “the Fish,” housing a scientific echosounder, hydrophones, and other marine research instruments. A weather station is mounted high in the rigging, and from the deck, scientists deploy equipment to measure and sample the ocean far beneath the keel.

Among their tools are several fine-mesh nets used to collect and study plankton and other small organisms drifting in the ocean.

One of these tools is called the Manta Trawl. The net got its name because it resembles a manta ray and mimics the ray’s feeding method of filtering water. But this net captures more than just food.

– The manta ray feeds on plankton and small creatures. The issue is that microplastics have a similar size. There's a high likelihood that they also feed on microplastics, explains Lena Schaffeld, a master’s student at Instituto do Mar (IMAR) at the University of the Azores in Portugal.

The Manta Trawl is deployed with a small crane, and Lena adjusts the lines in rhythm with the ship’s movement.

– Really calm conditions today. So the manta is flowing.

The trawl itself is long and narrow, with two fins extending outward from the rectangular mouth. At the end is a filter that collects everything the net scoops up as it’s towed through the surface water.

One of the features that makes the One Ocean Expedition unique is that Statsraad Lehmkuhl gathers scientific data continuously along its route. This makes it possible to observe how ocean conditions change from place to place.

On May 12, while sailing between Ireland and France, the net collected mostly zooplankton. But by May 19, when the ship reached the Portuguese coast, the result was dramatically different.

– This here is our sample that we collected between Ireland and France. And we can see a lot of zooplankton, while on the other hand, this is the sample we collected a week later once the expedition reached the Portuguese coast. Oh, wow. Look at this. All the white little dots. It's plastic fragments, Lena says, holding up the two samples.

Below you can see the difference, the first two images are from between Ireland and France, the rest are taken outside Portugal. All photos: Matteo Baratella

Researchers use various tools to count particles and analyze the water samples. These data are then combined with numerical models that simulate ocean currents, allowing scientists to trace particles back to their likely sources.

– By collecting microplastics with a multi-tool, we can count the particles we find in the sample. And then, using numerical modeling, we can simulate the ocean currents and follow the particles along the route and identify their potential sources, says Charlotte Cunci, a PhD candidate at the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanology at the University of Toulon in France.

One of the main goals of the project is to determine where plastics accumulate and how they travel across the ocean.

– With that information, we can change the regulation of plastics and reinforce it to protect marine areas, Charlotte adds.

This is not the first time the researchers have found plastic in the sea, but the sheer volume of microplastics in every single sample leaves a strong impression.

– For me, it's exciting to do all of this sampling, but generally I'm quite sad when I see so much plastic. We have a lot of plastic in the ocean, and when we can show that, it gives us leverage to push the ocean laws and do something about it, says Lena.

– I think if we mess it up, we also have to fix this, so I'm very glad to be on this voyage. Communicate and share the knowledge to raise awareness, she concludes.

Manta rays may look intimidating - flat-bodied, winglike fins stretching out to the sides, a long narrow tail, and two horn-like lobes flanking the mouth. The largest can weigh over 1,000 kilos and have a “wingspan” of six to seven meters.

But looks can be deceiving. Their mouths are large, but their teeth are tiny. 

When feeding, they open their mouths wide and glide through the water, filtering out shrimp, krill, crabs, and other crustaceans. When plankton is especially dense, the gills can clog, forcing the ray to “cough” to clear the flow of water and oxygen. At such moments, a cloud of plankton may billow around the ray - an irresistible feast for the cleaner fish that often swim alongside.