Top Boating Instagram Accounts to Follow

With so many boating-related Instagram accounts these days, it can be hard to stay up-to-date with everything happening in the industry.

To fill your Instagram feed with inspiring content, we searched for some of the most popular and captivating Instagram accounts out there and here are the results.

The Qualified Captain

Created in 2016 and based out of the North Carolina coast, the Qualified Captain highlights boating incidents of reckless boaters to entertain their followers and hold boaters accountable for their doings on the water.

The rapid growth of its community led to the expansion of business to a worldwide-known clothing brand, making it the number one social media influencer in the maritime industry. Their plans include partnering with other brands to keep educating boaters and building a brand popular among all marine lovers.

Woman Who Sails

Born in France, mother to a loving son, and a former product specialist in medical devices used in reconstructive surgery, Laurence Miseray (53) has been living aboard sailboats for awhile now along with her husband Bernard (73). Bernard was the one that introduced her to sailing. He is a retired and tireless adventurer and has completed 4 Paris Dakar (including one as a Vespa Piago factory pilot), 8 Historic MC rallies, and has had 3 planes with which he traveled for his work (his drilling company), and four monohull sailboats.

When she embarked on her first sailboat, the Nauticat Simba, not even sea sickness nor the rough Pacific weather discouraged her from sailing. Hence, in 2019, she decided to do her RYA skipper day, which helped her feel more comfortable on the water. Having also passed the Advanced Open Water Padi, Laurence (53) serves as a clear example that it’s never too late to learn. 

In 2018, they started living aboard their Nauticat 44, with which they sailed from Phuket to Noumea where they ended up selling it. Their next sailboat was a Beneteau 57 called Image that they bought in Bodrum, Turkey. They lived onboard Image for 3 years in the Mediterranean and crossed the Atlantic on it in 2022 with the Viking Explorer Rally as trip companions. In the Carribbean since January, they have expressed that they wish to go back to the Pacific to reach French Polynesia. Even though they are both in excellent shape, they have recently sold Imagine and want to buy a multihull sailboat that will facilitate their onboard living and sailing at their age.

Captain Liz Clark

Having learned to sail on a little red sailing dinghy at the age of seven in San Diego and, at ten, completed a 5,000-mile on a 6-month cruise in Mexico on the sailboat The Endless Summer with her family, California, Captain Liz Clark has been a sailor for the most of her life.

Sea traveling made her conscious of the beauty of nature, the freedom that came from it,  and the need to preserve the natural world. At fifteen, her love for the ocean and nature led her to start practicing surfing at first privately and later on competitively when she was studying in college, taking surf trips in Barbados, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hawaii, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Australia. The awareness of protecting the environment and promoting environmentally sustainable living has been on her mind to such an extent that led her to finish a degree in Environmental Studies. After her graduation, she worked as a crew member on different boats for about a year, and then by chance she became captain of her sailboat, Swell, having sailed the ocean and lived a simple life in constant contact with nature since October 2005.

Gone With The Wynns

The Texan couple Jason and Nikki Wynn (Gone With The Wynns) are two ordinary people living an extraordinary life onboard the sailboat Curiosity. They started traveling around the world in 2011 to get outside of their comfort zone and embrace the unknown in a new lifestyle where sustainability matters.

After spending their first years of travel on a road trip around North America and reaching Alaska, they decided to buy a sailboat in 2016 to help them explore other regions of the globe. That was the beginning of an incredible life story. Their sailing voyage has been ongoing ever since, and their life adventure has already taken them and their two cats to visit half of the world's stunning locations.

Sailing La Vagabonde

With no prior sailing experience, the Australian couple Riley and Elayna, known as Sailing La Vagabonde, have been documenting their sailing adventures on YouTube since 2014: from Mediterranean, Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific crossings, to storms, pirates, financial issues, and many other incidents along the way. Amid all these adventures, Lenny and Darwin were born and raised in the sailboat.

With over 165,000 YouTube subscribers, Sailing La Vagabonde keeps creating adventurous trips around the globe, and it has even launched its Merchandise shop to help Riley and Elayna's family safely navigate around the world.

Navika Sailing 

After having quit their corporate jobs a few years ago, Alex and Lars are now living full time aboard their sailboat, Navika, where they combine their greatest passions: working as yoga and meditation instructors and being able to slowly sail to different destinations around the globe. 

Alex (of English/French roots) and Lars (of Norwegian/English roots) met in France 14 years ago and have stuck together ever since. Enthusiasts of sailing since they were young, after many attempts and setbacks, they were finally able to fulfill their dream of living a life of adventure and purpose on the water. They now live aboard the Tayana 37 sailboat, Navika, sharing videos that capture their boatlife including the best or worst moments onboard, unveil their latest projects, and document recent trips on the most incredible locations they end up discovering as they sail.

World Cruising Stories

Biggi and Torsten are a German couple from Munich, whose love for adventure and world exploration led them to undertake an incredible sailing journey through the world. Their love for sailing began back in 2013 after buying the SY Victoria, a 43-foot-Hallberg-Rassy Yacht, with which they sailed for the next 2 years in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and down the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean. After selling Victoria in 2019, they bought the SY Ambra, a Nautor 48 Swan to continue their sailing adventures crossing the Atlantic.

Born in Germany, having lived in Australia and London, and studied engineering, Torsten is the captain of their sailboat, being able to fix anything needed and being a dad of three lovely children. Biggi, also born in Germany, lived in Italy for three years and is a Marketing Manager with no sailing experience. She is the one responsible for the online communication and marketing of their adventures onboard the Ambra.

The Yacht Guy

Thanks to Instagram and many years of networking and meeting powerful people in the yacht industry, Alex Jimenez managed to change his normal life to a life of traveling the world back in 2014, when he became a full-time influencer. The former short-haul truck driver in the Bronx born in Puerto Rico from a humble background is now the no. 1 yacht influencer globally. Yet, his journey to the top implied hard work and commitment. 

After reading everything he could about yachts, he started attending boat shows where he would take pictures and make videos of luxury yachts that he would then publish on Instagram. Soon he had 800,000 followers and learned this could be his life passion. In a flash, his life changed from publishing pictures on Instagram to being paid by yacht brokers to experience their yachts and mention them docked in a specific port or their availability for sale or charter. After many years of attending countless onboard yacht parties and being on the water all day, Alex would like to own a yacht in the future as yachting has truly become his life.

Maddie Brenneman

Grown up in Denver, Colorado, along with her three sisters and born of Canadian parents, Maddie spent most of her Summer in the forests of Ontario, where she had her first contact with fly fishing, her favorite. During college days she moved to Seattle, Washington, and then work took her to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she worked in the travel industry. After a few years away from home, Maddie understood her place was back home and decided to leave her Santa Fe desk job to start a career in freshwater fishing on the Colorado river, where she could spend every day on the water.

In the last few years, she has been working as a Rocky Mountain fly fishing guide in Denver. In her free time, she lets her love for adventure travel take her to southern hemisphere locations, like Argentina and New Zealand, her favorite countries of them all. She enjoys these adventures with her boyfriend, Nick, who shares her love for this sport that connects many fish enthusiasts with the outdoors.