connecting community, science and the arctic
“The ocean is the greatest classroom on Earth, and a sailboat like Tilvera is the smallest yet most powerful laboratory“
Privileged to learn directly from nature and working with passionate experts, researchers and students that are shaping the future of our oceans, we want to turn experience into action. Through research, education, passion and sustainable practices, our projects unite people to protect arctic fragile ecosystems and inspire new ways of living in balance with our natural world.
Current projects & partners
Marine litter Research
Whale & Sea bird Monitoring
Hope Expeditions
Together with our parallel project and main partner, Ocean Missions NGO, we work to monitor the health of our oceans, with a special focus on microplastic pollution, sea birds and whales. From Iceland to Svalbard, our aim is to empower people to take action and generate strong scientific evidence that supports the creation and expansion of marine protected areas in the Arctic.
Through Ocean Missions we work in close collaboration with the University of Iceland to advance ocean conservation and research.
With the HYPMO project, our mission is to find and better understand the elusive northern bottlenose whale (Hyperoodon ampullatus) in some of the most remote and least-studied regions of the North Atlantic—specifically the waters surrounding Jan Mayen Island. We use photo-identification, citizen science, and a towed acoustic recorder to document their presence and behavior.
Beyond this, the project also aims to uncover other hidden stories of the ocean: detecting underwater human-made noise and revealing the presence of additional whale species traveling along uncommon routes that are rarely explored or observed.
Plankton Research
With our onboard Planktoscope device, we study and monitor the zooplankton composition and abundance in the Arctic to better understand their vital role in sustaining marine ecosystems, the threats they face, and how we can protect them.
The data is then uploaded to an open data base and shared to AWI (The Alfred Weneger Institute in Germany) and at Ocean Missions, to be used by students and researchers in specific projects.
Our long-term vision is to shape a new model for small-scale Arctic sailing that enables truly responsible and regenerative tourism while actively contributing to science, conservation, and ocean stewardship.
The project is built by a growing community of small sailing operators and coordinated through the Sailing4Science initiative, endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade 2030 program, aligning exploration, knowledge-sharing, and care for the ocean.
Other project partners
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If this resonates with you and you see potential to collaborate for positive change, we’d love to hear from you
