About — OceanVines

Our Story

A Hong Kong harbor, a wooden hull, and a question worth chasing.

OceanVines began on the docks of Hong Kong, where a small group of sailors, scientists, and citizens of the city kept asking the same question: what if yachts — symbols of leisure and luxury — could become vessels of learning, stewardship, and change?

From that question, a movement was born. We refit and re-purposed the heritage motor yacht Sea Tiger as our floating classroom, laboratory, and ambassador across the South China Sea and beyond.

Today, OceanVines is a nonprofit collective of mariners, marine scientists, students, and storytellers — committed to making Asia's oceans visible, valued, and vibrant for the generations to come.

Meet Sea Tiger →

Sea Tiger at anchor — Sai Kung, Hong Kong

Our Approach

We learn at sea, and we lead from it.

Real change begins with real encounter. Aboard Sea Tiger, we bring young people, professional crews, and community leaders directly to the reefs, currents, and coastlines they will one day defend.

Immersive Education at Sea

Marine science, navigation, and conservation taught not in a classroom, but on the water — where curiosity meets the wild.

Crews & Youth as Ambassadors

We train yacht crews and Asian youth to become certified ocean ambassadors — extending stewardship across every harbor they visit.

Sustainable Practices

Low-impact operations, clean energy retrofits, and reef-safe protocols — our vessels lead by example, not exception.

Community Leadership

We partner with coastal villages, universities, and regulators across Asia — building a regional fellowship for ocean health.

Why Asia Matters

Half the world's coastlines, and the heart of the ocean's future.

Asia is home to the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on Earth — the Coral Triangle, the South China Sea, the Yellow and East China Seas — and to nearly two-thirds of the world's coastal communities.

It is also where the pressures on the ocean are most concentrated: from fisheries and shipping to plastic, pollution, and rapidly warming waters. The fate of the global ocean will, in many ways, be decided here.

60%

of world's coastal population lives in Asia

75%

of global coral reefs found in Asian waters

heritage research yacht: Sea Tiger

∞

reasons to act, starting now

Students aboard Sea Tiger — South China Sea

The Sea Tiger

A school that sails. A lab that floats. A home that teaches.

Sea Tiger is OceanVines' 120-foot dedicated education vessel — purpose-built not for research, but for sustained, immersive learning at sea. She hosts students, educators, scientists, and storytellers across Asia's most important marine ecosystems.

With open-deck learning spaces, a dive platform, a media studio, and sail-assist hybrid propulsion, every system aboard is designed to teach — and to do so with the smallest possible footprint on the sea she sails.

Full Sea Tiger Deep-Dive →

Founders & Leadership

The hands at the helm.

OceanVines is led by a small, dedicated team that brings together a lifetime of seafaring, science, and stewardship across Asia.

Captain Wei-Lin Cheung

Co-Founder & Master of Sea Tiger

A third-generation Hong Kong mariner who has spent thirty years at sea — and decided to spend the next thirty making sure others can.

Dr. Amara Tan

Co-Founder & Chief Scientist

A coral reef ecologist whose fieldwork from Palawan to Okinawa shapes the science programs that bring young researchers aboard.

Marcus Holloway

Co-Founder & Director of Programs

A former superyacht captain turned educator, building the curriculum that turns yacht crews into the world's most unexpected conservationists.

Advisory Council

The network behind the work.

Dr. Priya Nair

Marine Policy · Singapore

Yuki Takahashi

Ocean Finance · Tokyo

Elena Reyes

Coral Research · Manila

Prof. Liu Wei

Ocean Science · HKUST

Our Impact

The numbers behind the mission.

2,500+

Students at sea

Partner organisations

Reefs & MPAs surveyed

12k

Mangroves planted

The ocean doesn't care about borders. Neither do we. OceanVines exists because Asia's seas need a generation that has been moved by them — and is ready to move for them.

Captain Wei-Lin Cheung · Co-Founder

We believe in belonging, not just visiting.

Every program is designed not to give students a holiday at sea, but to make the ocean feel like home.

We believe in Asia, leading for Asia.

Our founders, crew, and participants are overwhelmingly from the region — because the people who know these waters best are the ones who should lead their future.

We believe in honest optimism.

The ocean faces serious threats — and we face them honestly. But despair doesn't restore reefs. Hope, skills, and action do.

For Asia's oceans,
for the generations to come.

Our work is powered by a simple, hopeful belief:
when people fall in love with the sea, they protect it.

A Hong Kong harbor, a wooden hull, and a question worth chasing.