Changing the story of multiple sclerosis.
We’re putting people living with MS on the ocean as real crew, and carrying their stories to the world.
Life with MS should still have room for adventure.
Too often, it doesn’t. Medicine and research work hard on the disease, and the life around it gets far less attention: the friendships that go quiet, the plans that leave without you, the world getting smaller.
"I'm a sailor who can't sail. I played ice hockey. I'm a skater who can't skate."
An Expedition MS advisor living with MS
- 3 in 4
- people with moderate MS couldn't keep up their social and leisure life over ten years
- Johansson et al., Multiple Sclerosis Journal, 2020
Expedition MS exists to make that room. You’ll get a place aboard, a real job and a crew around you, whether it’s your first sail or your hundredth.
What we do
Global sailing expeditions
We're building toward a voyage around the world, port by port. In each city the boat runs day sails with the local MS community, with passages and ocean crossings in between. People living with MS sail every leg.
Media and storytelling
We’ll work with documentary makers and creators, such as Echo Bay Media (opens in a new tab), to film the journey. The films will be made so that someone living with MS, watching from home, sees what's possible.
Fundraising and community support
As the stories travel, they’ll bring in the partners and supporters who fund the next crew. Supporters can also turn their own challenges, like a ride, a run or a family day, into support.
Local sails. Coastal passages. Oceans ahead.
You choose how far you go: a few hours on a day sail in your city, a few days on a passage to the next port, or a few weeks across an ocean. Most people will start with a day sail, and the next step will be there when you want it.
We'll film along the way, so the story reaches people living with MS wherever they are. Someone watching today could sail next.
The first voyage
It starts with one week at sea. People living with MS, their families and experienced sailors crew one boat together. What we learn that week shapes every voyage after it.
- Crew
- People living with MS, family and experienced sailors
- Experience
- None needed. You learn the job aboard.
- Boat
- Chartered
- Dates
- People on the crew list hear them first.
It started in one family.
My dad, Tim, lived with primary progressive MS for twenty years. It kept taking more from him, and our family kept going anyway: to New York, to Maine, onto boats. When he fell, he cracked a joke, so our family motto became We Crack Ourselves Up. In 2017, the year before he died, we rode our first Bike to the Bay as Team Archie, and we've raised over $380,000 for the National MS Society since. Expedition MS is what comes next: people living with MS and their families crewing a boat together, port to port.
Who's behind it
A sailor leads it
Duff Archie has sailed since 2007 and raced competitively since 2013. He is a US Sailing keelboat instructor with offshore safety training, spent ten years as lead instructor at Washington Sailing School, and taught basic sailing to more than 50 Ensigns at the US Naval Academy. Offshore, he has crewed the Annapolis to Bermuda race (second in class, 2026), the Annapolis to Newport race, and a delivery from Bermuda through Gulf Stream squalls. He now races out of Charleston on a team led by a disabled skipper.
A family that lived it
The Archies lived with Tim's primary progressive MS for twenty years. Since 2017, Team Archie has raised over $380,000 for the National MS Society. Read our story, or Duff's Away We Go essays (opens in a new tab) about those years.
The founders who did it first
In 2014, Danish physician Mikkel Anthonisen launched Oceans of Hope (opens in a new tab), and its yacht sailed around the world with a crew of people living with MS: 94 sailors from 16 countries over 17 months. With his blessing, Rob Munns went on to found Oceans of Hope UK (opens in a new tab), and Rob says it has taken more than 2,000 people with MS sailing. That voyage showed people living with MS can crew an ocean-going boat. It ended in 2015. Rob has backed us taking it further: from the US, port by port around the world, and onto film.
A film team that knows the sea
Echo Bay Media is our documentary partner. Co-founder Andre Dupuis won Gemini Awards for his photography on the travel series Departures, and their crew has filmed as far south as Antarctica.
However you found us, there's a way in.
The first crew is forming now, so you'd be among the first aboard. Tell us who you are and what you have in mind. Duff reads every message and writes back himself.
Want to read first? See Sail with us or Partner with us, or follow along in the Away We Go essays (opens in a new tab).
I'm reaching out because
- I live with MS and want to sail(opens the form in a new tab)
- I'm family, a friend or a caregiver(opens the form in a new tab)
- I'm a sailor who wants to crew(opens the form in a new tab)
- I want to help make it happen(opens the form in a new tab)
- Something else, like press or a question(opens the form in a new tab)
Each one opens a short form, with your answer already filled in. Or write to duff@expeditionms.org. Have a story to share? Use the story form.