SSV Robert C. Seamans headed north from Dunedin yesterday.
The ship is one of two tall ship scientific research vessels operated by the United States-based Sea Education Association, which teaches people about the ocean.
Throughout the year, the ship hosts educational semester and summer voyages throughout the Pacific Ocean, including ports of call in Polynesia, Fiji, American Samoa and New Zealand.
It departed Dunedin early yesterday for Christchurch, where, on Friday, it will end a voyage that started in Auckland on January 2 and took in Russell, Wellington and Dunedin on the way.