The Ocean Race: bringing sailing and science together to improve ocean health.

The underlying premise for The Ocean Race – racing to circumnavigate the world – means that the race naturally takes competitors to some of the most remote areas in the world. This makes it a unique platform for undertaking scientific research as it gives scientists access to remote areas, such as the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, that would otherwise rarely be accessible. Ships sailing outside of regular shipping routes play an essential role in the ability to deploy scientific instrumentation, such as the drifter buoys and Argo floats that are deployed during the race, across under-sampled locations. This affords rare opportunities for gathering data from parts of the planet where little information has been recorded, making the Race a crucial platform for collecting data that is otherwise unattainable and filling data gaps, contributing to furthering our understanding of our oceans. 

The Ocean Race Teams Sustainability Charter and Code of Conduct was co-created with the teams to express a fleet-wide commitment to sustainable operations and supporting a healthy ocean. The charter includes themes of Advocacy, Science, Learning and Operations. It seeks to get all teams, staff, and sailors to stand up for the ocean through sustainable sailing, team, and personal actions. 

On the science front, teams must pledge to agree to:

• Supporting science-based decision making.
• Participating in increasing knowledge and understanding of our ocean.
• Hosting scientific equipment onboard.
• Participating in sailor and citizen science programmes.
• Contributing to the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science in collaboration with The Ocean Race.

Including science within a charter and requiring stakeholders to undertake various science-related activities whilst competing in a sailing race embeds science, as a core value, into race practices. This is unique in the sporting world as it requires teams and athletes to take on environmental responsibilities as well as their existing sporting responsibilities.

The Ocean Race Science Programme is run in collaboration with various science partners, bringing together organisations and teams to pioneer new approaches to data collection, advance technology to contribute to global standardised data mapping, and increase our knowledge of oceans and their relationships with climate change. It provides a unique, and promising, expansion to observational networks, and enables the development of new sampling technologies (e.g. OceanPack-RACE – developed according to sailors’ and scientists’ specifications).

Partnerships with the scientific community allow the data collected by the racing boats to be processed and quality checked by science partners, and then made available through global open-source databases. Databases include, amongst others, the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet) and the Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) – which informs the Global Carbon Budget, itself informing environmental projections and targets. The deployment of drifter buoys, operated by Météo France, contributes to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) drifter programme. 

Beyond facilitating access to hard-to-reach locations, sailboats also provide useful modes of transport for deploying scientific instrumentation. The boats can carry scientific equipment, both for deployment in the ocean, but also for continual measurement by sensors that are permanently onboard. The race boats’ speed means that data from different locations can be captured across short timespans, something which is not achievable by most research vessels. Yachts can also be used to pilot and test new research technology and techniques, such as technology that allows results to be shared in real-time, and the OceanPack – a device which records essential ocean data from aboard the yachts. 

In a racing context, carrying devices that take meteorological measurements is not only beneficial for science partners, but also for the race participants themselves, as it helps to inform and improve weather forecasts that will impact their own decision-making and performances throughout the race. 

Using racing yachts for data collection paves the way for the installation and deployment of measuring devices on other vessels such as fishing or commercial boats, as well as other sailing boats. 

The data collected by the racing boats contributes to understanding the complex ocean system by recording high quality direct measurements. The meteorological and oceanographic data gathered from onboard sensors (OceanPack and weather stations), drifter buoys, and Argo floats, is transmitted to science partners in real-time via satellite. While the data alone is useful, its full potential for advancing climate science arises when it can be combined with existing data and integrated into models and assessments. Sharing data with the scientific community facilitates quality control and synthesis into useful data products. 

Collaboration with key environmental institutions means that the collected data can contribute to global open-source databases such as the Surface Ocean Carbon Atlas (SOCAT), the NOAA NCEI World Ocean Database, UNEP’s Global Marine Litter Programme, the Copernicus Marine Service, and the European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODnet).

The aggregated data can then be used for assessing, mapping, and modelling pressing issues such as plastic pollution, ocean temperature, or the state of marine environments. The data also contributes to scientific assessments and reports that underpin key environmental policies such as the Global Carbon Budget, the UN Framework on Climate Change, or the Treaty on Plastic.