Legendary Sailing Ship Heraclitus Rebuild Nears Completion
Seamanship Training | Documenting Impacts of Sea Rise | Ocean Education & Research
Adventure with purpose can be hard to find, but the Research Heraclitus offers exactly that. The 84' Chinese Junk with a ferrocement hull is one of the most exceptional seafaring vessels ever built. It has decades of experience conducting expeditions to remote coastal cultures, serving as platform for numerous citizen science initiatives, documentary films, and conducting training programs for hundreds of individuals of all ages in seamanship.
Since 1975, the Research Vessel Heraclitus has been documenting remote coastal areas, conducting citizen science programs, collecting data in marine ecologies, mapping and monitoring coral reefs in the Caribbean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean, SE Asia and the Pacific, making film documentaries and logging over 100 hours in oral history documentation of the SeaPeople of the Mediterranean: lighthouse operators, fishermen, ship's captains describing their lives and changes observed over the last few decades. The documentation from the Mediterranean Oral History expedition are being made available through a digital commons in 2025.
Why Now?
The Ocean biome of Planet Earth faces possible ecosystem collapse, species extinction and coastal communities will take the brunt of the impact from sea rise. We are here to continue to sail the worlds oceans, witness and document, educate and train the next generation of ocean going explorers.
The Heraclitus hull is now fully restored and ready to be sealed, and one step closer towards being back in the ocean. With your help, we can finish the rebuild and be back at Sea in 2025 and launch into a new era of planetary exploration.
To learn more about the ship, its history and future programs, visit www.rvheraclitus.org.
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