Year after year, QBE has remained a tireless advocate for the exhilarating sport of sailing and a witness to the transformational outcomes that result from small-team expeditions to magical places.

Parents and students immediately notice that we operate as a family, not as some large matrixed company. We don’t do focus groups or bring in educational consultants to tell us how to do things. We just continue to embrace our founding principle that there’s no substitute for challenging students to accomplish ambitious goals while introducing them to the wonder of unfamiliar places, cultures, and tastes.

Too, we’ve found it best to work with small groups of six or seven students, teams small enough to bond over just two–three weeks. That’s why we’re happy to remain a small “boutique” operation, necessarily sustained in large part by the financial, volunteer, and moral support of our patrons.

A much larger QBE, or a QBE using more common production-line boats, would struggle to deliver our unique expedition experience.

“I would like to thank you for creating this amazing program!! [My daughter] absolutely loved it... When I asked her what was the best thing about it she said, ‘Will creates an environment where you get to meet and work with amazing people.’ I’m so glad I sent her.”

— Summer 2023 parent, New York, NY, USA

So… with so many outdoor options available, why choose a maritime expedition along far-away coastlines?

Certainly, there’s a lot to choose from, but when it comes to nurturing emotional intelligence, deeply visceral experiences (like gaff-rig blue-water sailing), far removed from familiar surroundings, can be pixie dust, especially when participants are given the autonomy to make many of their own expedition decisions—when they’re in charge.

QBE crew members come to realize they are capable of doing things they never dreamed they’d have the opportunity or ability to do.

New self-esteem in turn acts as a powerful catalyst for academic and career success. That’s why more and more schools are now including various expeditionary learning activities as part of their co-curricula. What was once considered an enrichment perk for private school students has now become a broad-based movement.

As for yachting, youngsters who previously never even thought about going sailing wind up loving it. In fact, many of our crew members want to come back and do it again. It so happens that several 2023 participants joined us again this past season, and several 2024 expeditioners are planning to join us again in 2025.

It’s satisfying for us to see how things unfold sometimes: a summer sailing adventure ends up being an ignition switch for an unexpected new passion—one that doesn’t involve a smart phone or game console!

The language of instruction is English. Of course, students who want to upgrade their French also have ample opportunity to improve their listening comprehension and idiomatic lexicon. And everybody gets to make friends from around the world.