When Ray Dalio was growing up on Long Island, he used to love watching TV documentaries by Jacques Cousteau, the French oceanographer. Now Dalio, 71, and the founder of one of the largest hedge funds in the U.S., is launching OceanXplorer, his own 286-foot research vessel, with three miniature submarines and two underwater robots, to explore the oceans of the world himself.
He also will make some documentaries of his own, starting with a six-part series for National Geographic, produced by the BBC with James Cameron, the director of The Titanic, as executive producer.
Dalio is best known as the head of Bridgewater Associates, in Westport, Connecticut. It is often referred to as the largest hedge fund in the country. Forbes says that Dalio himself is worth $16.9 billion.
Now he’s turning his considerable energies, and some of his fortune, to studying the world’s oceans and the creatures that live in them. The oceans, he says, are “our world’s greatest asset.”
After traveling around the world on a smaller research ship, and taking the first picture ever of a giant squid, Dalio bought OceanXplorer, a used oil ship, in 2016. It was built by Freire in Spain in 2010, and has a beam of 59 feet, a draft of 22’ 5”, a displacement of 4,398 tons, and room for a crew of 85. It tops out at 16.5 knots.
The ship has spent the past two years at the Damen yard in the Netherlands for a major refit, so it can be used for research, ocean exploration, filming and livestreaming events. Cameron has installed Hollywood-quality movie labs on board, and will use banks of lights underwater to illuminate not only the sea creatures being studied but also the scientists who are studying them.
The chief scientist on board is Vincent Pieribone, a neuroscientist at the Yale School of Medicine. He told The New York Times that OceanXplorer is “like something out of a James Bond movie.”
The ship is now undergoing sea trials in Europe. Filming for the TV series is scheduled to start early next year. Stay tuned. Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/science/ocean-exploration-dalio-ship.html
