Yachts for Science and Rosie O’Donnell are transforming the superyacht industry into a powerful force for marine conservation, proving that luxury vessels can do far more than cruise from one glamorous anchorage to the next. By opening their vessels to researchers, owners are helping to answer urgent questions about the ocean while giving their yachts a deeper, more meaningful purpose.

A vital platform addressing a critical data gap

With less than 10% of marine life identified and only a fraction of the ocean floor mapped, marine scientists face an unprecedented knowledge deficit. Yet one of the biggest bottlenecks in ocean research is access to sea time itself. Dedicated research ships are scarce, expensive, and often unavailable when needed. Meanwhile, over 13,000 private yachts over 24 metres cruise the world’s oceans, many operating in biodiversity hot spots where critical research needs to happen.

Yachts for Science, a not-for-profit initiative, bridges this gap by matching mariner researchers with yacht owners who have time and space to spare. It’s elegantly simple: transform downtime into discovery and pleasure into purpose. For scientists, it means access to research platforms in the right places at the right times. For yacht owners, it offers meaningful philanthropy and unforgettable experiences for family and crew.

Scintilla Maris and Dr Paige Maroni’s arctic mission

The 45.6-metre Scintilla Maris exemplifies this partnership. Launched in 1989 as one of the last North Atlantic fishing trawlers, she was completely reimagined in 2023 as a cutting-edge eco-explorer with hybrid propulsion and dynamic positioning—ideal for sensitive polar environments.

In August 2025, Scintilla Maris embarked on her first Yachts for Science mission in Iceland with deep-sea marine biologist Dr Paige Maroni of the University of Western Australia. Departing from Akureyri in northern Iceland, the expedition traced the dramatic Eastfjords to Breiðdalsvík over six days, aiming to reveal hidden polar biodiversity, closing critical knowledge gaps, and supporting future conservation strategies. Dr Maroni’s work across 2025 demonstrated how private vessels can unlock decades’ worth of research data from remote, poorly studied Arctic regions that traditional research infrastructure had never reached.

Maya Santangelo’s manta ray research in the Marquesas

In October 2025, marine biologist Maya Santangelo launched the French Polynesia Manta Project, focusing on the large but understudied manta ray populations of the remote Marquesas Islands. Working from expedition yachts year-round, her team uses photo-identification, habitat surveys, and movement tracking to understand both reef and oceanic manta ray species, their connectivity across the Pacific, and the environmental drivers shaping their behaviour.

Because the Marquesas are isolated and logistically demanding, collaboration with private yachts—providing berths, tender boats, and experienced operators—has been critical to reaching remote aggregation sites and building long-term data sets that inform regional conservation strategies.

Why this matters

For yacht owners, hosting a mission is transformative. It contributes directly to marine conservation, generates positive global media coverage, and offers crew and guests once-in-a-lifetime scientific experiences. Scientists, meanwhile, gain access to sea time they couldn’t otherwise afford. And the ocean gains the research capacity it desperately needs.

As more owners follow Scintilla Maris’s example, the private yacht fleet is evolving from a symbol of leisure into a global network of roaming research stations—proving that a vessel can be both a place of pleasure and a platform for genuine planetary impact.