Every year ships founder or disappear on the Earth's largely unexplored and hazardous oceans.
Even with sophisticated technology a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane has disappeared, so far without a trace in the southern Indian Ocean.
Now some scientists want to fill fundamental gaps in ocean knowledge by recruiting thousands of recreational sailors to form a global monitoring network, collecting temperature and conductivity measurements, monitoring the weather and recording sightings of debris.
A UNSW-led "proof of concept" voyage, from South Africa to Singapore, has shown that data on marine micro-organisms can be collected cheaply and easily using small instruments fitted to yachts at a fraction of the cost of running specialised research vessels.
In an article in the journal PLOS Biology, UNSW microbiologist Federico Lauro says there is a shortage of oceanographic data because it is financially and logistically impractical for scientists to sample such vast areas.
"These missing data hamper out ability to make basic predictions about ocean weather, narrow the trajectories of floating objects, or estimate he impact of ocean acidification and other physical, biological and chemical characteristics of the world's oceans," the paper says.
But with the right equipment, citizen oceanographers could gather large quantities of information as they sail around the world, Professor Lauro says.
"We were able to run an entire scientific expedition across never before sampled waters for less than what it costs to run an oceanographic vessel for one day," he said.
Participating cruisers would also collect samples of the tiny marine microbes, including bacteria and plankton, which are the foundation of the food web and vital indicators of the health of the oceans.
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