YouTube Sailing Channels by the numbers: 2025 Annapolis Sailboat Show Edition

You want to know who is doing well in the YouTube sailing and cruising genre? Once again, the data scientists have gone spelunking through the YouTube machine, digging into the dark caverns of its algorithms and hauling out data that only the truly obsessed can make sense of. Every channel thinks it knows itself, but most don’t have the kind of deep, cross-channel insight we can scrape, stitch, and sort. So, the data gnomes of sailing rolled up their sleeves and started digging. But before we get into the shiny bits, let’s go over a few caveats so we’re all on the same tack.

Some folks in the YouTube sailing crowd really don’t like this kind of analysis. And fair enough. Nobody enjoys being ranked, compared, or charted like a horse at auction. It’s awkward to see your stats side by side with someone else’s and realize the algorithm loves them just a little more. Because of that, a few creators have ghosted any attempt at dialogue. A few creators have some pretty negative reactions. I figure it is my cologne, “Ode to dirty sailor.” Given the risks of getting too cozy in the parasocial swamp, I’ve decided future analysis will stay strictly clinical. No group hugs, no “we’re all in this together.” Just data.

Now, what counts as a sailing channel? This is where things get touchy. We’re not talking about “once owned a dinghy” or “used to have a mast before converting to van life.” This search is for actual sailing channels. If a creator bailed on the boat and went back to RV life, off-grid homesteading, or sourdough tutorials, they’re out. Love them or not, they’re not sailing channels anymore. And yes, there are some wonderful cruisers out there on powerboats, but this isn’t about them either. I like powerboats fine and even watch a few channels, but we’re keeping the focus on sails.

Our search terms included “sailing,” “SV,” and related keywords. One notable channel didn’t make the cut because YouTube’s own search decided to pretend she didn’t exist. We also excluded any channel with fewer subscribers than mine. I have to draw the line somewhere, and self-respect seemed like a good place to start.

This data is constantly shifting. We’ve started automating collection behind the scenes, but it’s not meant to be definitive. YouTube keeps changing the game—shorts, community posts, all the rest—and that makes apples-to-apples comparisons tougher. We also left out channels like sailing clubs, Volvo Ocean Race coverage, and the Vendee Globe. Those are fun to watch (and yes, that crash at the start this year was a heart-stopper), but our focus has always been on cruising content, with a side order of DIY.

My one and only call for action in this is please go subscribe to Sailing BeBop, my son’s channel. Not my channel, theirs!

We found over 1,200 sailing-related channels before YouTube finally tapped out and told us to go outside. We’ve got a dedicated account subscribed to as many as possible, feeding data into the system like a caffeine-addled parrot. If we ever open the dashboard publicly, we’ll add a signup option for creators who want to join the fun.

The numbers here were pulled about two months ago, just in time for release before the boat show. So some of the figures may already be a little stale, but the trends hold steady enough to give a clear view of what’s happening across the YouTube sailing world. And really, that’s the point—to see the tide, not the ripples.

Top 25 by subscribers (plus 1)

We always end up talking about the top few channels because people love hard numbers. Everyone wants to know who’s winning, as if YouTube were a regatta. And, once again, Sailing La Vagabonde is cruising comfortably in first place with about twice as many subscribers as Delos, which holds steady at number two. The top five haven’t shifted much over time. Fame in the sailing world moves slower than a full-keel cutter in light wind.

Top 25 By Subscribers

Rank	Title	Join_Date	Subscriber_Count
1	Sailing La Vagabonde	10/25/14	1960000
2	Sailing SV Delos	5/17/07	953000
3	Sailing Doodles	10/4/16	709000
Not Sailing	Gone with the Wynns	9/25/10	661000
4	Sailing Zatara	6/14/16	621000
5	Sampson Boat Co	6/15/17	558000
6	Expedition Evans	1/9/18	485000
7	Sailing Nahoa	6/13/12	439000
8	Sailing Uma	2/4/15	432000
9	Sailing Parlay Revival	6/21/18	382000
10	Barefoot Sailing Adventures	11/9/12	360000
11	Alluring Arctic Sailing	4/1/18	352000
12	Spear It Animal	8/20/20	287000
Not Sailing	Project Atticus \| Our DIY Homestead	1/10/14	278000
13	Sam Holmes Sailing	4/18/06	275000
14	Erik Aanderaa	8/14/07	269000
15	Sailing Miss Lone Star	12/29/14	266000
16	Odd Life Crafting	9/17/16	246000
17	Hashtag Sal	2/20/14	244000
Not Sailing	Sailing Good, Bad, and Ugly	4/27/18	225000
18	La Vida a Vela – Sailing My Life	12/28/16	199000
19	RAN Sailing	9/27/15	184000
20	Sailing Zingaro	10/15/16	180000
21	MJ Sailing	12/6/09	176000
22	The Lazy Geckos	8/1/15	170000
23	Sailing Ruby Rose	3/15/15	169000
24	Sailing Magic Carpet	5/13/18	168000
25	Sailing Nandji – Frothlyfe	1/15/15	161000
26	Sailing KALLI	12/28/21	158000

The Wynns have officially sold their boat back to the manufacturer and are now drifting into the “adventure trawler” scene, following the current made popular by Naughty Styles. They’re still included here for context, but next round they’ll be off the list. You can’t be a sailing channel without sails, after all.

Project Atticus and Sailing Good Bad and Ugly have both gone to ground, apparently building homesteads or living their best lives somewhere far from Wi-Fi. Good for them, though their content is missed. YouTube might be a harsh mistress, but she doesn’t forgive long absences.

And then there’s Sailing Kalli, who get a special mention later. Let’s just say they’ve made waves of their own, and not just the wake kind.

Top 25 By Views (Some Surprises)

Subscribers don’t always mean much when it comes to actual views. Every time some AI-generated talking head pops up with a “data analysis” video about sailing channels, they love to trot out Social Blade stats and act like subscriber counts are the holy grail. They aren’t. Views rule the hill. Views are the currency of attention, and attention is what triggers the mysterious YouTube payout machine.

We can’t directly pull watch time from the API right now, but views give a solid clue about who’s getting paid and who’s just shouting into the void. With enough math and caffeine, you could average a creator’s top 25 videos, apply standard retention rates, and get a rough estimate of watch time. We’re not doing that here—unless, of course, you’re ready to send $99.95 and a decent cup of coffee. That’s a “call to action,” by the way. You know, the “like, subscribe, and hit the bell” ritual every creator does before the outro music.

Remember how I mentioned Sailing Kalli earlier? Here’s where it gets interesting. They come in at number five for total views, even though they wouldn’t have cracked the list based on subscribers alone. That’s like showing up late to the race and still making the podium. Even more curious, they’ve only been posting for about a year and have gone quiet. No new videos, yet their back catalog keeps pulling people in. Somewhere out there, an algorithm is still smiling on them.

A lot of big sailing channels are in full-blown boatbuilding mode. Delos, Uma, Nahoa, MJ Sailing, Odd Life Crafting, Ran, Sailing Into Freedom, and yes, Doodles. They’re all knee-deep in epoxy and sponsorships. Personally, I don’t have the patience for a three-year boat build, but clearly, viewers do. Every one of the top 25 channels by view count has some DIY flavor baked into their growth. Nothing says “engagement” like fiberglass dust and time-lapse frustration.

Creators love to obsess over thumbnails, too. We used to grade them with an actual rubric to see what styles worked best, but that’s getting impossible now. YouTube lets creators A/B test up to three thumbnails and multiple titles, sometimes more. Add in the platform’s experiments with tailoring titles for specific audiences, and you’ve got chaos disguised as strategy. And now, with AI creeping into the process, thumbnails and titles are about to become even more customized. Soon your feed won’t just know what you want to watch—it’ll know what color boat you secretly wish you owned.

Top 25 By Views

Rank	Title	View_Count
1	Sailing La Vagabonde	459452533
2	Sailing Doodles	441862599
3	Sailing SV Delos	264109532
4	Expedition Evans	162777954
5	Sailing KALLI	140002828
6	Sampson Boat Co	134924470
7	Sailing Zatara	133994285
8	Barefoot Sailing Adventures	133761297
9	Sailing Uma	110171486
10	Captain Rick Moore	93895040
11	La Vida a Vela – Sailing My Life	93068735
12	Sailing Miss Lone Star	76991770
13	Sailing Nahoa	74539916
14	Sailing Parlay Revival	70958444
15	The Lazy Geckos	55791666
16	MJ Sailing	55732746
17	Odd Life Crafting	49587277
18	RAN Sailing	47975572
19	Alluring Arctic Sailing	46609504
20	Sail Life	41975044
21	Sam Holmes Sailing	41068960
22	SAILING into FREEDOM	40510799
23	Sailing Nandji – Frothlyfe	38788187
24	Hashtag Sal	38151225
25	Sailing Ruby Rose	35635971

Hashtag Sal, a non-English sailing channel now sporting AI dubbing, makes a special appearance this time around. After our last analysis, a few folks pointed out—loudly—that we’d been a little too English-centric. Fair enough. We tried to cast a wider net, but there are only so many languages one sleep-deprived data gnome can wrangle without accidentally subscribing to a cooking channel in Croatian.

La Vida a Vela slipped through early because they had “sailing” in their English title, which fooled the search filter into thinking they were one of the usual suspects. They’re staying in the mix because their content actually fits.

As for The Wynns, Project Atticus, and Sailing Good Bad and Ugly, they’ve officially been dropped from this round. The Wynns sold their sails, Atticus built a cabin, and Good Bad and Ugly disappeared like a dinghy painter in the night. Fair winds to all of them, but for now, this list is for those still out there making waves.

Views Per Video (performance and viral)

This is one of the more controversial ways to measure a channel’s performance. It’s the kind of metric that makes data purists twitch. A channel could have one lonely video, no subscribers, and still land at the top if that single upload blew up with millions of views. Meanwhile, a hardworking creator with hundreds of millions of total views spread across thousands of videos might not even make the list. It’s unfair, ridiculous, and also kind of fascinating.

So why bother? Because this metric catches the oddballs—the overperformers, the meteors streaking across the YouTube night sky before vanishing again. It spots channels that are punching above their weight, rising faster than traditional stats would show, or catching that rare viral lightning bolt. Every so often, we also find the opposite: someone who dipped a toe into sailing content, realized it wasn’t all sunsets and dolphins, and quietly returned to shore.

Looking at the data, Expedition Evans sits comfortably on top with over a hundred solid videos and consistent performance. Then you’ve got Limosa, who posted just 18 videos but scored 8.9 million views from one viral hit about the Ultra Marine anchor. It’s the YouTube version of winning the lottery on your lunch break.

And then there’s Pilgrim Sailing, another low-volume, high-impact case. Not a ton of videos, but one of them racked up 1.2 million views about building a boat to cross the Atlantic. It’s a reminder that in this game, one big swing can make you look like a genius. Or, as the saying goes, when a billionaire walks into a room of street sweepers, suddenly everyone’s a millionaire on average. YouTube statistics work the same way—just with more epoxy and fewer tax shelters.

Views Per Video

Rank	Title	View_Count	Video_Count	Views Per Video
1	Expedition Evans	162777954	197	826284
2	Sailing La Vagabonde	459452533	622	738670
3	Sampson Boat Co	134924470	235	574147
4	Barefoot Sailing Adventures	133761297	250	535045
5	La Vida a Vela – Sailing My Life	93068735	203	458467
6	Sailing Limosa	7240222	18	402235
7	Sailing Doodles	441862599	1117	395580
8	Sailing SV Delos	264109532	690	382767
9	Madison Boatworks	9972677	27	369358
10	Alluring Arctic Sailing	46609504	134	347832
11	Sailing Drew	17832629	59	302248
12	Sailing Zatara	133994285	456	293847
13	Sailing Miss Lone Star	76991770	277	277949
14	Spear It Animal	24439585	92	265648
15	Erik Aanderaa	27591408	116	237857
16	Pilgrim Sailing	2128935	9	236548
17	Sailing Nahoa	74539916	329	226565
18	Sailing Parlay Revival	70958444	364	194941
19	Sailing Zingaro	16628367	87	191131
20	Sail with Ben and Amy	5727114	30	190904
21	Sailing Aphrodite	25275716	146	173121
22	Sailing Uma	110171486	641	171874
23	The Lazy Geckos	55791666	341	163612
24	Sailing Trio Travels	32408973	203	159650
25	MJ Sailing	55732746	413	134946

One of my favorites to see here in the solid performer category is Spear It Animal. Their numbers are not reflective of the current reality, but the data here shows them rising rapidly to the top.

Ode to channels that have passed

Over the years, several channels have simply stopped posting. Some go out with a loud and clear “Screw you and the dog you rode in on,” while others just drift quietly into the background like a forgotten anchor line. Calico Skies, now reborn as Calico Skies – New Horizons, is a good example of how life changes can rewrite a channel’s story.

There’s a long list of creators who have disappeared: Ocean Bandits, Follow the Wind, Sailing La Vida Gypsea, Monday Never, Ryan and Jessica, Sailing Satori, Polar Seal, and countless others who have slipped into the abyss. The people are still out there somewhere, but they’re no longer making videos. A few have returned over the years, though they are rare cases. Many have sold their boats, or are in the process of selling, like Ruby Rose and Tulas Endless Summer. Sailing Sunday recently sold theirs, with plans to get a catamaran. Maybe Tula and Sailing Sunday should rendezvous at the Annapolis Sailboat Show and swap stories.

Life happens. Seasons change. Sailing Zatara, once a major channel, is now homesteading in Montana. Whether they appear in the next iteration of this analysis remains to be seen. We’ve seen divorces, separations, kids, money troubles, injuries, and health crises end cruising careers for creators.

Let me close this by saying this life is tough. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, and now, nearly eight years into living aboard, I know exactly how brutal it can be. Broken boats, ocean tows, rigging failures, cancer, and MS all make this lifestyle a challenge. Never look at a YouTuber’s public persona and think you have them figured out. Behind the cameras, there’s often a lot you don’t see.

I’m a writer with a face radio can only love. That said, maybe I should throw my hat in the ring, if only to annoy some people. That would be worth the price of admission.