Sailing The Crown | Live Voyage Tracker, Captain’s Log & World Expedition

finding humanity globally starting 2027

One sailor. One boat.
Thirty countries.The oceans are just the roads.
The destination has never been the point.This is S/V The Crown - a Beneteau First 53 leaving Portland, Oregon to circle the world one harbor at a time. Not to chase postcard views, but to sit at tables where strangers become friends.Every port has someone worth meeting. A fisherman finishing a lifetime at sea. A grandmother guarding recipes no cookbook has ever printed. A family willing to set one more place at the table. An entrepreneur building something against impossible odds.We’ll share meals, ask better questions, and listen longer than most travelers stay.Because the best way to understand a place isn’t through its monuments.
It’s through the people who call it home.The map is live.
The seahorse is The Crown.
Welcome to the journey.

S/V The Crown is in PORT FIX

Portland, Oregon, United States

Day

of 30

SOG kt

Sail along

Join the crew of The Crown.

A Beneteau First 53, thirty countries, and a founder running two companies from the chart table. Members sail along - the log first, the photos in full, and a line straight to the captain.

Support the voyage · one-time & small monthly

☕ Buy the captain a coffee - $15, one-time, no membership 📡 Fund the Starlink - $10/month toward the signal that keeps this map live ₿ Give in crypto - borderless support for a borderless voyage

Or join the crew · memberships

Associate

$25 /month

Exclusive posts with behind-the-scenes insights
Early access - first look at the adventures
Live chats and members-only hangouts with the crew
Private Reddit group + Discord benefits
10% off all STC merchandise

Highlighted tier

Explorer

$50 /month

Everything in Associate, deeper and more often
Explorer-only exclusive posts and early access
The unbelievable live chats - real time with the crew
Members-only hangouts with the crew and fellow Explorers
20% off all merchandise, always

The full pass

All Access

$110 /month

Everything in Explorer
Every benefit Sailing The Crown offers, all access, always
Every future member benefit, included the day it launches

Payments are made to Fractional Coordinator, Inc. (Delaware), owner and operator of Sailing The Crown. Subscriptions renew monthly through Stripe; cancel anytime from the Manage subscription link on any receipt. Exclusive posts, live chats, hangouts, Reddit, and Discord access are delivered by email invitation after joining; merch discounts apply at the STC store.

Live traffic

Vessels around The Crown.

Live AIS traffic by VesselFinder, centered on the boat's current position. Ships appear as they broadcast; coastal coverage is strongest.

Open full VesselFinder

Traffic shown for following the voyage, not for navigation. AIS displays transponder-equipped vessels; deep-ocean coverage is limited.

Secure checkout

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Card details are handled end-to-end by Stripe's secure checkout, right on this page. Subscriptions renew monthly; cancel anytime from any Stripe receipt.

The Show

Sailing The Crown, the series.

A travel show that happens to live on a sailboat. Thirty countries, no script, no fixer, no five-star anything - part sea story, part street food, all real.

What this is

The boat is transportation. The show is what happens after the anchor drops - the market at six in the morning, the woman who has fried the same fish on the same corner for thirty years, the table where strangers turn into dinner company. Sail in quiet. Eat what the locals eat. Listen more than talk. Leave grateful.

The rules

No staged moments. No hotel restaurants. If the food comes with a view, be suspicious; if it comes off a cart, sit down. The best stories live where the menu is handwritten or not written at all, and the person cooking has a name worth learning.

The boat

S/V The Crown, a Beneteau First 53, sailed single-handed. She is the ride, the bunk, the edit bay, and on good nights the dinner table. Getting there is half the show - squalls, breakage, night watches, the ocean in all her moods - and none of it is cut to look easy.

When it airs

Between ports, when the story is done cooking - the ocean keeps the calendar. Every new film lands on the channel first and gets its entry in the Captain’s Log, pinned to the exact spot on this map where it happened.

▶ Watch on YouTube · @sailingthecrown

Free to watch · subscribing is how the show finds its crew

Media & Press

For press, podcasts, and producers.

Interview requests are welcome - from the dock now, and from thirty countries once the lines are cast off.

The story in one paragraph

Sailing The Crown is a solo westabout circumnavigation and documentary series: Albert Roberson departs Portland, Oregon aboard S/V The Crown, a Beneteau First 53, bound around the world through roughly thirty countries - via the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Panama Canal - filming the people, harbors, and meals along the way. One country, meal, and story at a time.

Fast facts

Captain: Albert Roberson, Portland, Oregon · Vessel: S/V The Crown, Beneteau First 53, sailed single-handed · Route: westabout, 36 ports, ~30 countries, Cape of Good Hope not Suez, return via Hawaiʻi · Departure: Portland, September 2026 · Live tracking: this page, drawn over the boat’s own satellite link.

Interview logistics

Before departure: available in person in Portland or remote on short notice. Under way: reachable by satellite for audio and video from open ocean - scheduling follows the ship’s clock shown on this page, and weather outranks calendars. In port: in-person availability announced by country.

Story angles

Solo circumnavigation in the tradition of the sailors who came before · a food-first travel format - the show eats where the locals eat · the technology of a one-man broadcast: live chart, satellite uplink, episodes cut at anchor · and the harbor-by-harbor case that the world is mostly generous.

The brand

Primary lockupDownload PNG

The mark - goldDownload PNG

The mark - reversedDownload PNG

The mark - ink (the chart’s beacon)Download PNG

Paper#F7F4EC

Ink#151412

Signal Yellow#FFE500

Crown Gold#D4A551

Gray#6E6A61

Right-click any asset to save. Gold for the masthead, ink for the chart, yellow only for emphasis.

Assets & attribution

Photography, the seahorse mark, vessel imagery, and captain portraits are available on request. Please style the series as “Sailing The Crown” and the vessel as “S/V The Crown.” Position data and imagery from this site may be shown with credit to sailingthecrown.com. Sailing The Crown® is owned and operated by Fractional Coordinator, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

Request an interview

Delivered to captain@sailingthecrown.com · replies follow the weather

The Equipment

What’s aboard, and whether it earns its keep.

Everything on this page is actually on the boat. Verdicts are written at sea, not in a showroom - what worked, what broke, what gets bought twice.

The boat

S/V The Crown - Beneteau First 53Fifty-three feet of ride, bunk, edit bay, and dinner table. In full offshore commissioning now; her fit-out is logged here as each system earns its place.
Williams MiniJet - the tenderThe family car is a jet boat: Williams’ MiniJet, jet-drive with no propeller to bite a swimmer, small enough to garage aboard. Every market run and every plate of food on this show arrives by this tender - she works harder than anything else on the manifest.

Navigation & safety

AIS transceiverThe Crown broadcasts and watches - the same traffic you can see on this page’s chart.
Self-steeringThe third crew member. An electric autopilot and a wind vane share the wheel so one human can sleep - the single most important hire on a solo boat.
EPIRB, liferaft & offshore kitThe gear you buy hoping to write nothing about it. Entries land as final selections are made.
The storm kitDrogue and storm canvas for the days the ocean stops negotiating. Bought early, rigged carefully, hopefully bored to death in a locker.
DJI DockAn automated drone station standing watch: perimeter security at anchor and weather observation ahead of the boat. Security and weather tracking only - it is not part of the camera department, and it does not film people.

Power & the signal

StarlinkThe reason this map exists. Every position, log entry, photo, and film travels over the dish - it is the show’s umbilical, and the Starlink Fund keeps it lit.
Solar + lithium house bankSized to run the boat, the edit, and the uplink without running the engine to make electricity. Final numbers published at commissioning.
The generatorInsurance for the gray weeks when the sun forgets its job - it backstops the batteries, the dish, and the edit. Run little, thanked often.
WatermakerTurns the ocean into coffee. Freedom from the marina hose is freedom to stay where the story is.

The camera department

Fujifilm X-E4The A-camera. Small enough to live in a cockpit pocket, quiet enough to disappear at a market stall - which is the whole point. Most of what you see was shot on this.
GoPro Hero fleetThe crew that never sleeps: masthead, transom, underwater, and anywhere salt water would murder something more precious. Squalls and dockings get filmed because these were already rolling.
DJI microphonesWireless mics that clip on and get out of the way - narration on watch, conversations at the table, and the fight against twenty knots of wind across every deck on Earth.
Camera filtersND and polarizers, because sun on water is beautiful and merciless. The difference between footage and cinema is often a piece of glass the size of a coin.
MacBook Pro & the Mac stableThe nav station is an edit bay: a MacBook Pro cuts 4K on battery power in the middle of an ocean, with the rest of the Mac equipment backing it up. Episodes are finished aboard, start to finish.

The galley

ECM Technika VI with Flow ControlYes - a full E61 espresso machine, at sea. Non-negotiable equipment: the flow-control paddle means the first cup of a night watch is dialed in, not survived. The house bank was sized with this in mind, and it will absolutely get its own episode.
The fishing kitHandlines and lures off the stern - the freshest section of the menu, and the only restaurant open mid-ocean.

Crypto

Borderless support for a borderless voyage.

The Crown crosses thirty jurisdictions; crypto crosses all of them without asking. Send from anywhere - it lands aboard the same as a coffee.

Contributions in crypto are gifts to the voyage - no tiers, no renewals, no refunds possible once on-chain. Double-check the address before sending; the sea forgives more than the blockchain does. Questions: captain@sailingthecrown.com

Ship’s papers

The fine print, kept short.

Ownership. Sailing The Crown®, sailingthecrown.com, and the seahorse mark are owned and operated by Fractional Coordinator, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Memberships and contributions are payments to Fractional Coordinator, Inc.

Memberships. Tiers renew monthly through Stripe until cancelled - cancel anytime from the Manage subscription link on any Stripe receipt, or write to the captain. No questions, no ceremony. Coffee is a one-time contribution.

What members receive. Exclusive posts, early access, live chats, hangouts, and community invitations are delivered by email between ports; upper-tier privileges are arranged directly by the crew. At sea, delivery follows the weather; patience is part of the passage.

Refunds. If a charge is wrong or a perk was not delivered, write within 30 days and it will be made right - refund or credit, your choice.

Privacy. Payments are processed by Stripe; card details never touch this site. Analytics are anonymous counts only. No ads, no tracking pixels, and your email is never sold or shared.

The map. Positions, weather, radar, and vessel traffic are shown for following the voyage - never for navigation.

Contact. captain@sailingthecrown.com · All words, photographs, and film © Fractional Coordinator, Inc. · Sailing The Crown® is a mark of Fractional Coordinator, Inc., a Delaware corporation.