Citizens of the Sea

09/06/2026

Exciting preliminary results obtained during The Ocean Race Europe 2025 — and another step in pushing the frontiers of scalable ocean biodiversity monitoring. 🌊🧬⛵

With DNAutic v2 now being prepared for testing during the Route du Rhum 2026, we’re excited to keep building toward an expanded racing eDNA fleet for The Ocean Race World 2027 and Vendée Globe 2028.

Huge thanks to The Ocean Race, Team PAPREC, Sequench, Wilderlab, Illumina, Inc., Minderoo Foundation and Vendée Globe Foundation for helping make this possible.

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8 Jun 2026 08:26 The Ocean Race sailors help detect threats lurking in European waters © Julien Champolion / The Ocean Race Seawater samples collected by sailors during The Ocean Race Europe 2025 could unlock new insights into ocean hazards, from algal blooms to jellyfish swarms. It comes at a crit...

24/05/2026

A beautiful message from the young crew of Savarna, sharing why they are helping collect eDNA as they sail across the Pacific — and why understanding ocean life matters for the future.

This is what citizen science is all about: families, sailors and scientists working together to make the invisible life of the ocean visible. 🧬⛵💙

Many thanks to Charlotte Keller for capturing this moment!

19/05/2026

Meet our Australia to New Caledonia Crews 2026!

12/05/2026

𝐀 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 Citizens of the Sea — 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 Forbes.

This article beautifully captures the vision we’ve been working toward for years: transforming racing yachts into floating laboratories capable of collecting biodiversity data across the world’s oceans using environmental DNA ( ).

From the pioneering Vendée Globe campaign with Fabrice Amedeo, to collaborations with The Ocean Race, the 11th Hour Racing and Paprec Arkéa Teams and citizen sailors across the Pacific, this journey has only been possible through extraordinary partnerships and shared belief in scalable ocean science.

A massive thank you to everyone helping make this happen:
Fabrice Amedeo, The Ocean Race and Stefan Raimund, Vendée Globe Foundation, Spindrift racing, Illumina, Inc., Sequench, Wilderlab, Cawthron Institute, and Minderoo Foundation.

And of course, thank you to science journalist Veronika Meduna for telling this story so beautifully.

📖 Read the Forbes article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/veronikameduna/2026/05/05/racing-yachts-double-as-floating-labs-for-ocean-research/

Racing Yachts Double As Floating Labs For Ocean Research
This is just the beginning 🌍🧬⛵

Yachts equipped with high-tech but user-friendly environmental DNA kits are building a more comprehensive picture of how life in the ocean is changing.

10/05/2026

09/05/2026

Meet our Fiji Crews 2026!

08/05/2026

Just wrapped on the Citizens of the Sea Launch event in Opua, New Zealand! It was terrific meeting many of the 2026 sampling fleet and chatting about biodiversity mapping, new ways to engage with the results, and training tips for the sample collection to come!
Many thanks to for helping us celebrate our amazing community of sailor scientists!

06/05/2026

Just wrapped our 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐑𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡 (2026) and what an incredible energy in the room!

This year, we’re sending off 24 Citizen Scientist crews across the Southwest Pacific, expanding our reach even further with new routes from Australia to New Caledonia.

Over the past days, we trained and connected with an inspiring community of sailors—sharing the science behind eDNA, lessons learned from the 2024 and 2025 campaigns, and how each sample contributes to something much bigger.

Because this is where it gets exciting:
👉 With three consecutive years of sampling, we’re now building a unique dataset that will allow us to 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧.

Seeing the enthusiasm, curiosity, and commitment from this community is always a powerful reminder: this is ocean science at scale, powered by people

Next stop: the open ocean 🌺

𝐀 𝐡𝐮𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 who make this possible — and to every crew member out there helping us better understand and protect our changing oceans:

Special thanks goes to: Minderoo Foundation, Vendée Globe Foundation, Illumina, Inc., Island Cruising NZ, Zymo Research, Ngaio Diagnostics, and our local partners Vepa Vava'u, Reef Explorer Fiji, Institute for Research & Development.

⛵🧬

Citizens of the sea was co-founded in 2024 by Cawthron Institute and New Zealand Geographic

02/12/2025

Here’s the gorgeous video from BBC Storyworks Commercial Productions featuring Liz, Barry, Lily, Felix and Rufus. Thank you so much for being our citizen scientists and sharing your love of nature with the world.

With thanks to Minderoo Foundation for supporting our work.

When sailors become citizen scientists