Sailing boats as a coastal ocean observing network: Dutch foundation presents results at IEEE MetroSea 2026

A sailing boat can measure the sea like a weather station, and the first results show it works. Today in Šibenik, Croatia, Stichting Project SeaSense presented its observing network made of the boats that are already sailing at the IEEE MetroSea 2026 workshop.

Coastal seas change fast and are measured far too rarely: fixed stations measure one spot, research ships are scarce, and satellites struggle near the shore. Meanwhile thousands of sailing boats cross these waters, already carrying instruments for wind, depth and water temperature. That data disappears.

SeaSense has built a small node that listens to the boat's own instruments and adds its own air-pressure and motion sensors, plus an optional water-quality module. In summer 2026 the system spent 69 days aboard a new Contest 63CS, from Medemblik through the Kiel Canal to the Stockholm archipelago and back to Knokke, with no one from the project on board. Up to 10 August it recorded 1,080 observations at a median interval of 15.5 minutes.

The results are in the paper Recreational Sailing Fleets as a Coastal Observing System, co-authored with researchers from The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) and TNO. Air pressure reaches weather-station quality after a single correction. Depth and water temperature are usable, especially in shallow coastal water. The water-quality sensors detect what they should, but don't yet last long enough at sea.

“One boat shows it works. A fleet makes it valuable. In 2027 we want around fifty sailing boats measuring Dutch waters for a whole season.”

That next step is Blauwe Long (Blue Lung): around fifty sailing boats measuring the North Sea coast, the Wadden Sea, IJsselmeer, Markermeer and Zeeland through the 2027 season. The foundation is seeking funding for it.

Project SeaSense is an endorsed Decade Project of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030). The expedition was made possible by the Naiad Foundation, with Contest Yachts.