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What Travel Advisors Should Know about SeaDream Yacht Club

SeaDream II. Photo: Ming Tappin

With the tagline of “It’s Yachting, Not Cruising,” SeaDream Yacht Club, which launched in 2001, aims to differentiate itself from other small-ship cruise lines. TMR sailed onboard SeaDream II in the Mediterranean to find out exactly how different the SeaDream yacht experience is.

Who is SeaDream Yacht Club?

The SeaDream fleet consists of identical yachts SeaDream I and SeaDream II, originally built in 1984 and 1985 respectively as Sea Goddess I and II, operating as Sea Goddess Cruises. In 1986, the twin yachts were sold to Cunard Line. Cunard joined the Carnival Corp. family in 1998, and in 2000, the yachts were transferred to Seabourn, also a Carnival brand. A year later, Seabourn founder Atle Brynestad   purchased them and founded SeaDream Yacht Club.

Both yachts have 56 staterooms and suites with a capacity for 112 guests. There are only three accommodations types: the 195-square-foot Yacht Club Stateroom; the 375-square-foot Admiral’s Suite; and the 447-square-foot Owner’s Suite. Two Yacht Club Staterooms can be combined together to make a Commodore Suite. SeaDream also attracts solo travelers, which means the yachts can be sold out but sail below full capacity. 

Yacht facilities include an indoor and outdoor restaurant, a lounge, a fitness center, a spa/beauty salon, a swimming pool, three hot tubs, a golf simulator, a small casino, a boutique, a piano bar, a library, and a retractable water sports platform.

All meals and beverages, watersports, and gratuities are included.  Wi-Fi costs extra, although the library has a computer with complimentary internet. Excursions (called Yacht Land Adventures) are also available for purchase.

SeaDream sails in the Caribbean in the fall/winter (typically from the end of October or early November to April) and in Europe during the rest of the year. Sailings are between seven and 14 days in length, and since the itineraries do not repeat week after week, it is possible (and popular) for guests to book back-to-back voyages. SeaDream has also just released a series of Grand Yachting Voyages for 2025/2026 with 21- to 35-day itineraries.

The yachting life

“At your leisure” is a great way to describe life onboard SeaDream. The day starts with an al fresco breakfast at Topside restaurant, which has a self-serve buffet and a full table service menu. Lunch is also served here in the same format, and both meals always feature a Chef’s Daily Special. Morning yoga and tai chi are also offered.

If it’s a port day, many guests take a Yacht Land Adventure, but they are also free – and are encouraged – to explore on their own. The Concierge is happy to provide maps and suggestions for independent sightseeing. The yachts carries 10 bicycles for guests to take ashore, and crew members often lead Shoreside Casuals – walking, biking, and hiking excursions, which are free of charge. On our voyage, the Captain and Club Director led several hikes at various ports of call.

Otherwise, the sundeck is open for lounging, and whenever conditions permit, the watersports platform offers swimming, jet skis, Hobie cats, kayaks, banana boats, snorkeling gear, and more. But the most popular water toy is the inflatable slide that guests can careen from Deck 3 straight into the ocean.

Evening cocktails are followed by dinner in the Dining Salon, but at ports where the yacht stays late or overnight (and in good weather), dinner is held in Topside restaurant so guests can enjoy their meal with a view and cooling breezes. As expected, the dress code is relaxed casual. The day closes with a sing-along at the piano bar or drinks at the Top of the Yacht bar. In short, the yachting life is quiet and slow-paced.

The SeaDream difference

Besides the leisurely pace, a few additional elements differentiate yachting from cruising. First is SeaDream’s unique itineraries, sailing to small and remote ports. Our voyage included a visit to Gozo (Malta), Trapani, Lipari, Ponza, Porto Santo Stefano (all in Italy), and Antibes (France) – none of which we had heard of. That’s because most of SeaDream’s ports are too small for cruise ships to get into, so they aren’t household names. This often results in SeaDream being the only vessel in port, and its guests can explore unique places they otherwise would not experience. 

For its size, SeaDream exceeds expectations with culinary excellence, making it great for foodie clients. Led by an Executive Chef from Italy, the 16-member galley team on SeaDream II made pasta and pastries from scratch and cooked all meals à la minute. A diverse number of dishes – from curries and stir-fries to fresh seafood and meats – were beautifully plated and equally delicious. SeaDream also boasts a robust vegan and plant-based menu, an influence from the company founder’s own lifestyle. It is fully possible to eat a completely plant-based meal every day, with different appetizers, soups, entrees, and desserts. Most importantly – we can attest because we tried several dishes – they all tasted flavorful and were completely satisfying.

Next to culinary excellence, service is another hallmark feature of a SeaDream voyage. SeaDream boasts a 1:1 crew-to-guest ratio on most sailings, due to the yacht being sold out while carrying less than full guest capacity. We found SeaDream’s crew to be among the best we’ve ever encountered, with an uncanny ability to address guests by name even at embarkation, an intuitive nature in anticipating our needs, and an impeccable attention to detail in providing service. We were most impressed with their genuine interest in connecting and engaging with every guest without sounding forced or scripted. 

Wherever possible, the crew also tries to accommodate their guests’ needs. A couple we chatted with said they had asked for a liqueur which the bar did not stock. The next evening, the bartender presented with a bottle of it – he had personally gone ashore that day to purchase it for them. We also experienced this going-above-and-beyond service firsthand. Wanting to catch a live sports event but realizing that the stateroom TV did not have any sports channels, we asked the Hotel Director for advice, and he set up a big screen in the salon and streamed the event through his personal mobile device just for us.

An extremely loyal clientele

SeaDream guests are perhaps the most loyal we have seen onboard any cruise line, with every voyage consisting of 70% to 80% repeat guests. On our sailing, only 30 out of 101 guests were new to SeaDream. Most guests have sailed on SeaDream multiple times, with the top two most frequent-sailing couples having been on 35 and 40 SeaDream voyages, respectively. The Club Director also told us that nearly 80% of guests book a future cruise while onboard, with many booking back-to-back voyages.   

Why do guests keep coming back to SeaDream? Many we spoke to onboard love the small-scale and casual yachting experience, but nearly everyone said they come back for the fantastic crew who they consider as family. Nowhere is this more evident than at embarkation, where hugs and cheers frequently erupted when guests and crew from previous voyages were reunited.

What advisors should know when selling SeaDream

SeaDream Yacht Club isn’t for everyone, but for the right client, it will provide an outstanding experience, and advisors can be rewarded with lucrative repeat business. Here are some tips to help qualify clients to ensure they are a good fit.

Unregimented and quiet ambiance. By far the most noticeable difference from cruising, yachting on SeaDream is an unstructured and casual experience. Guests should not come onboard expecting the busy activity schedule of a cruise ship. Days are spent reading and lounging by the pool. Evenings are very quiet – short of a pianist and an occasional team trivia game, guests are left to socialize among themselves. SeaDream is ideal for clients looking to unwind and recharge, who don’t need to be entertained.

Like-minded, affluent demographic. SeaDreamguests are mostly retired or semi-retired. Guests on our voyage were predominately 60+, nearly all couples and groups of friends sailing together. There may be guests in their 30s or 40s on occasion, and due to the relaxed and congenial atmosphere onboard, solo travelers also find SeaDream appealing. SeaDream guests are well-traveled, outgoing, and are interested in meeting like-minded people. Finally, with an average per diem of $800+ per person in the Caribbean and $1,000+ per person in Europe, SeaDream isn’t for the budget traveler.  

Guests should be fairly able-bodied. Getting on and off the yacht is via a gangway of stairs, and due to the small ports it visits and the goal to open the watersports platform as often as possible, the yacht is mostly at anchor (our sailing had nine ports and we only docked once), so guests should also be comfortable with stepping in and out of tenders. There is a small elevator onboard but it does not reach the top sun deck. Door sills are common, although there are ramps in place.

The yachts are older vessels. Both yachts were built in the era when balconies and spa bathrooms were not the norm, so staterooms and suites only have portholes or windows, and the bathrooms in the Yacht Club Staterooms are very small. Although the yachts have been renovated, the “bones” of the vessels cannot be changed, so older equipment and fixtures remain visible.

Consider selling a full charter. With its small size, SeaDream is ideal for a full yacht charter for corporate and leisure groups. Under charter, clients can customize voyage elements such as the length, itinerary, ports of call, menus, onboard entertainment, and activities. Think family reunions, milestone celebrations, weddings, and corporate incentive programs. 

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NOT FOR CHARTER *

This Yacht is not for Charter*

SIMILAR YACHTS FOR CHARTER

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SEA DREAMS yacht NOT for charter*

35.96m  /  118' | trinity yachts | 1998 / 2019.

Owner & Guests

Cabin Configuration

• Previous Yacht

Special Features:

• Impressive 3,750nm range
• Sleeps 8 overnight

The 35.96m/118' motor yacht 'Sea Dreams' (ex. Marsha Kay) was built by Trinity Yachts in the United States at their New Oleans shipyard. Her interior is styled by design house Dee Robinson Interiors and she was completed in 1998. This luxury vessel's exterior design is the work of Trinity Yachts and she was last refitted in 2019.

Guest Accommodation

Sea Dreams has been designed to comfortably accommodate up to 8 guests in 4 suites. She is also capable of carrying up to 5 crew onboard to ensure a relaxed luxury yacht experience.

Onboard Comfort & Entertainment

Her features include deck jacuzzi, WiFi and air conditioning.

Range & Performance

Built with a aluminium hull and aluminium superstructure, with grp & teak decks, she benefits from a semi-displacement hull to provide exceptional seakeeping and impressive speeds. Powered by twin diesel Caterpillar (C32A) 1,800hp engines, she comfortably cruises at 15 knots, reaches a maximum speed of 19 knots with a range of up to 3,750 nautical miles from her 9,600 gallon fuel tanks at 12 knots. Her water tanks store around 2,500 Gallons of fresh water.

*Charter Sea Dreams Motor Yacht

Motor yacht Sea Dreams is currently not believed to be available for private Charter. To view similar yachts for charter , or contact your Yacht Charter Broker for information about renting a luxury charter yacht.

Sea Dreams Yacht Owner, Captain or marketing company

'Yacht Charter Fleet' is a free information service, if your yacht is available for charter please contact us with details and photos and we will update our records.

Sea Dreams Photos

NOTE to U.S. Customs & Border Protection

Specification

M/Y Sea Dreams

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Search for Yachts, Destinations, Events, News... everything related to Luxury Yachts for Charter.

Yachts in your shortlist

• CruiseMapper
• SeaDream Yacht Club

Former names: Seabourn Goddess I, Sea Goddess I

Cruise line SeaDream Yacht Club

• Piraeus-Athens (Greece)
• St Thomas Island USVI (Charlotte Amalie, US Virgin Islands)
• San Juan (Puerto Rico)
• Philipsburg St Maarten (Netherlands Antilles)
• Bridgetown (Barbados)

SeaDream I current position

SeaDream I current location is at West Mediterranean (coordinates 44.05536 N / 9.84505 E) cruising en route to Porto Venere. The AIS position was reported 4 minutes ago.

Current itinerary of SeaDream I

SeaDream I current cruise is 7 days, round-trip Tuscany Corsica Discovery . The itinerary starts on 21 Sep, 2024 and ends on 28 Sep, 2024 .

Specifications of SeaDream I

•   Itineraries
•   Review
•   Wiki

SeaDream I Itineraries

SeaDream I Review

Review of seadream i.

The 1984-built SeaDream 1 yacht was constructed by STX Finland (Petter Yran & Bjorn Storbraaten, Helsinki Finland ). Previously, the cruise ship was operated by Cunard Line as "Sea Goddess I". The vessel is in SeaDream Yacht Club's fleet since 2001. The only fleetmate is the sistership SeaDream 2 (1985), with a newbuild planned for the future - SeaDream Innovation (concept superyacht).

The vessel (IMO number 8203438) is currently Bahamas- flagged (MMSI 308908000) and registered in Nassau .

History - construction and ownership

The 112-passenger ship SeaDream I is indistinguishable from the sistership SeaDream II . She was designed for independent, experienced travelers who dislike large ships with kids running around, and all the dressing up - ties are useless here. Inside SeaDream I, there is a feeling of discreet sophistication. The public rooms are elegant and chic, with potpourri and flowers everywhere.

Decks and Cabins

The superyacht SeaDream 2 has a total of 56 staterooms (all are Suites, in 4 grades) and max passenger capacity 112 (plus 100 staff-crew. Most are the Yacht Club Staterooms (54 total, sized 195 ft2 / 18 m2), of which 16x can be converted/connected into Commodore Suites (8 total, sized 390 ft2 / 36 m2).

The ship has no cabins with step-out balconies. The largest accommodations are the Owner Suite (445 ft2 / 41 m2) and Admiral Suite (375 ft2 / 35 m2).

Each stateroom features a marble bathroom (Bulgari bath amenities, plush cotton bathrobes, magnifying mirror, massage shower units), spacious living room, smart UHDTV, CD/DVD system, USB charging ports, Internet outlets, iPod stations, personalized stationeries. Refrigerators and mini-bars are stocked with soft drinks, beers, bottled spring water (all beverages are complimentary).

The boat has 6 decks , of which 5 are passenger-accessible and 3 with cabins.

Shipboard dining options - Food and Drinks

A delightful feature of SeaDream cruises in warm areas is the beach barbecue "caviar in the surf" (land BBQ dining experience). Another benefit is the drinks onboard, which except connoisseur wines and premium brands, are all free. All meals in the Dining Room are open seating, all the time. Breakfast is typically served at the ship's Topside Restaurant. Guests can choose from a small array of fruits, bread, cereals and yogurt at a mini-buffet. Hot dishes are ordered from a menu. Lunch is also served at the Topside, while dinner locales vary.

Shipboard entertainment options - Fun and Sport

SeaDream entertainment options include a Piano Bar, Main Lounge, Boutique, Promenade (on Deck 5), Spa, Gym, Beauty Salon, first-run movies, aft-sundeck's swimming pool and Jacuzzi/whirlpool. The main gathering places for passengers are the lounge, as well as the delightful library and living room. Have a night at the piano bar (also serves as a Karaoke Bar), or stay at the small casino with 5x slot machines and 2x blackjack tables. Complimentary to all tourists are provided snorkeling gear, kayaks, wakeboards, stand-up paddleboards, sailboats, jet skis, Hobie Cats (sailing catamarans), a banana boat, a floating island and a trampoline, as well as electric mountain bikes.

Both SeaDream yachts feature "Top of the Yacht" bars (added during the drydocks in 2001), along with the 8x alcoves set to the starboard and port sides of the Funnel/smokestack (equipped with padded two-person loungers). At the front part of the Sundeck, there are large hammocks, more sunloungers and 2x Jacuzzies (added during the drydock in 2022), as well as a Golf Simulator (with 30+ golf course choices) that doubles as Cinema/Theater.

The superyacht has 1 elevator (midship, interconnecting all decks but 1-CrewDeck and 6-Sundeck) and Infirmary/Medical Facility (hospital and pharmacy, served by a resident physician).

Itineraries

Traditionally for SeaDream yachts, SeaDream 1 itinerary program is based on Mediterranean voyages (homeporting in Civitavecchia-Rome , Venice , Piraeus-Athens , Istanbul Turkey ), as well as Caribbean voyages (mainly 7-days in length) with homeporting in Bridgetown Barbados .

The cruise ship is also open for private charters with custom-designed itineraries.

Following the Coronavirus crisis, both SeaDream yachts restarted operations in July 2021 (Europe/Mediterranean deployment). The Caribbean operations were restarted in November 2021, with SeaDream 2 from San Juan Puerto Rico (Nov 20) and SeaDream 1 from Bridgetown Barbados (Nov 26).

Photos of SeaDream I

SeaDream I ship related cruise news

SeaDream Yacht Club unveils exclusive Spring 2027 Caribbean Voyages

The 2001-established company SeaDream Yacht Club has announced its spring 2027 itineraries, featuring a selection of refined small-ship Caribbean...

SeaDream Yacht Club announces 2025-2026 Grand Voyage Collection

SeaDream Yacht Club, renowned for its two ultra-luxury megayachts, has announced its 2025 and 2026 Grand Voyage Collection. These extended voyages...

SeaDream Yacht Club achieves milestone in sustainability with shore power installation

With the installation of advanced shore power technology, both SeaDream yachts can now shut off their engines and reduce emissions to zero in ports...

SeaDream Yacht Club unveils Caribbean cruises 2026 autumn

SeaDream Yacht Club has revealed its fall 2026 Caribbean voyages, featuring new ports, extended overnight stays, and exclusive access to a private...

SeaDream Yacht Club expands Greek Isles itineraries with a 14-night B2B cruise

SeaDream Yacht Club, a boutique luxury travel brand renowned for its intimate yachting experiences, announced the expansion of its Greek Isles 2025...

SeaDream Yacht Club upgrades entire fleet with shore power connectivity

SeaDream Yacht Club is embarking on a fleet-wide enhancement by incorporating shore power connectivity. The integration of shoreside electricity...

SeaDream Yacht Club unveils 2026 Mediterranean voyages with new ports and longer (14-day...

SeaDream Yacht Club has unveiled its 2026 Mediterranean voyages, featuring 7 new ports of call and the introduction of the first-ever 14-day in-depth...

SeaDream Yacht Club launches 2026 Caribbean collection

SeaDream Yacht Club has unveiled its 2026 Caribbean collection, consisting of 33 distinct itineraries available on both SeaDream 1 and SeaDream...

SeaDream Yacht Club introduces Holiday 2025 Caribbean voyages

SeaDream Yacht Club has announced its 2025 holiday Caribbean season, offering travelers the opportunity to explore secluded destinations and visit...

SeaDream Cruises launches 2025 Caribbean, Mediterranean, Scandinavia/Northern Europe itineraries

SeaDream Yacht Club announced the opening of 2025 Caribbean, Mediterranean, Scandinavia & Northern Europe cruises on its newly renovated, 56...

•   show more news

Other SeaDream Yacht Club cruise ships

• SeaDream II

SeaDream I Wiki

SeaDream 1 cruise ship is the line's first of all 2 (for now) top luxury all-inclusive cruise yachts. Her sister in the fleet is the yacht Sea Dream 2 . The ship was built in 1984 and chartered to Sea Goddess Cruises (as "Sea Goddess I" between 1984-1998), as "Seabourn Goddess I" (to Cunard and Seabourn , between 1999-2001) and operated under its current name by the shipowner since 2001.

SeaDream 1 cruises in the Mediterranean (visiting islands and ports in Italy, Greece, Turkey, France / French Riviera , Spain, also the Black Sea) and in the Caribbean (during winter). Transatlantic cruise deals are offered seasonally on the yacht's the Atlantic Ocean repositioning crossings. Some of the itineraries can be combined into back-to-back cruise deals (longer, discount-priced voyages). While generally departures and call port times are pre-set, the Captain can modify the yacht's cruise schedule and adjust those times (even seaports) along the route - if that would please his guests. Also, while most Caribbean cruise ships depart from ports of call in late-afternoon, SeaDream 1 is often departing in late-evening - just to give its affluent guests the chance to enjoy the local restaurants or the nightlife. Many cruise itineraries additionally feature scheduled overnight stays in ports.

The yacht's passenger capacity is only 112 guests, making it perfect for cruise ship charters, that usually serve corporate business meetings, "rich family" reunions, celebrities' anniversaries at sea, etc. On such deals, the cruise itinerary route for the yacht's charter is determined by the booking party.

SeaDream 1 refurbishments review

In 2022 (January and May), SeaDream conducted a USD 10 million (EUR 8,8M) drydock refurbishment project for both yachts at Navalrocha Ship Repair Lisbon (Portugal).

Works included full-scale renovations of all staterooms (new furniture, hardware, textiles, wardrobes, electrical upgrades / USB charging ports, Wi-Fi, fingerprint sensor lights, 55-inch smart HDTVs), all outside deck spaces (premium teakwood flooring, premium mahogany Balinese beds and sun loungers, Loro Piana upholstery and cushions, Frette towels, TUUCI parasols and hammocks), upgraded cabin amenities (woven lines, silk pajamas, silver ice buckets, GioBagnara Miramar trays).

Forward on Deck 6 (Sundeck's sunbathing area) were installed 2x new Jacuzzies and 2x new rain showers.

The aft-located/stern Marina Platform was also upgraded.

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Captain Trips – Alfred M. Hubbard

The original captain trips.

Before Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…before Timothy Leary…before Ken Kesey’s band of Merry Pranksters and their Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests…before the dawn of the Grateful Dead, there was Alfred M. Hubbard: the Original Captain Trips. by Todd Brendan Fahey

You will not read about him in the history books. He left no diary, nor chatty relatives to memorialize him in print. And if a cadre of associates had not recently agreed to open its files, Captain Alfred M. Hubbard might exist in death as he did in life–a man of mirrors and shadows, revealing himself to even his closest friends only on a need-to-know basis.

Those who will talk about Al Hubbard are few. Oscar Janiger told this writer that “nothing of substance has been written about Al Hubbard, and probably nothing ever should.”

He is treated like a demigod by some, as a lunatic uncle by others. But nobody is ambivalent about the Captain: He was as brilliant as the noonday sun, mysterious as the rarest virus, and friendly like a golden retriever.

The first visage of Hubbard was beheld by Dr. Humphry Osmond, now senior psychiatrist at Alabama’s Bryce Hospital. He and Dr. John Smythies were researching the correlation between schizophrenia and the hallucinogens mescaline and adrenochrome at Weyburn Hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada, when an A.M. Hubbard requested the pleasure of Osmond’s company for lunch at the swank Vancouver Yacht Club. Dr. Osmond later recalled, “It was a very dignified place, and I was rather awed by it. [Hubbard] was a powerfully-built man…with a broad face and a firm hand-grip. He was also very genial, an excellent host.”

Captain Hubbard was interested in obtaining some mescaline, and, as it was still legal, Dr. Osmond supplied him with some. “He was interested in all sorts of odd things,” Osmond laughs. Among Hubbard’s passions was motion. His identity as “captain” came from his master of sea vessels certification and a stint in the US Merchant Marine.

At the time of their meeting in 1953, Al Hubbard owned secluded Daymen Island off the coast of Vancouver–a former Indian colony surrounded by a huge wall of oyster shells. To access his 24-acre estate, Hubbard built a hangar for his aircraft and a slip for his yacht from a fallen redwood. But it was the inner voyage that drove the Captain until his death in 1982. Fueled by psychedelics, he set sail and rode the great wave as a neuronaut, with only the white noise in his ears and a fever in his brain.

His head shorn to a crew and wearing a paramilitary uniform with a holstered long-barrel Colt .45, Captain Al Hubbard showed up one day in ’63 on the doorstep of a young Harvard psychologist named Timothy Leary.

“He blew in with that uniform…laying down the most incredible atmosphere of mystery and flamboyance, and really impressive bullshit!” Leary recalls. “He was pissed off. His Rolls Royce had broken down on the freeway, so he went to a pay phone and called the company in London. That’s what kind of guy he was. He started name-dropping like you wouldn’t believe…claimed he was friends with the Pope.”

Did Leary believe him?

“Well, yeah, no question.”

The captain had come bearing gifts of LSD, which he wanted to swap for psilocybin, the synthetic magic mushroom produced by Switzerland’s Sandoz Laboratories. “The thing that impressed me,” Leary remembers, “is on one hand he looked like a carpetbagger con man, and on the other he had these most-impressive people in the world on his lap, basically backing him.”

Among Hubbard’s heavyweight cheerleaders was Aldous Huxley, author of the sardonic novel Brave New World. Huxley had been turned on to mescaline by Osmond in ’53, an experience that spawned the seminal psychedelic handbook The Doors of Perception. Huxley became an unabashed sponsor for the chemicals then known as “psychotomimetic”–literally, “madness mimicking.”

But neither Huxley nor Hubbard nor Osmond experienced madness, and Dr. Osmond wrote a rhyme to Huxley one day in the early 1950s, coining a new word for the English language, and a credo for the next generation:

To fathom hell or soar angelic, Just take a pinch of psychedelic.

Those who knew Al Hubbard would describe him as just a “barefoot boy from Kentucky,” who never got past third grade. But as a young man, the shoeless hillbilly was purportedly visited by a pair of angels, who told him to build something. He had absolutely no training, “but he had these visions, and he learned to trust them early on,” says Willis Harman, director of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Sausalito, CA.

In 1919, guided by other-worldly forces, Hubbard invented the Hubbard Energy Transformer, a radioactive battery that could not be explained by the technology of the day. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Hubbard’s invention, hidden in an 11″ x 14″ box, had powered a ferry-sized vessel around Seattle’s Portico Bay nonstop for three days. Fifty percent rights to the patent were eventually bought by the Radium Corporation of Pittsburgh for $75,000, and nothing more was heard of the Hubbard Energy Transformer.

Hubbard stifled his talents briefly as an engineer in the early 1920s, but an unquenchable streak of mischief burned in the boy inventor. Vancouver magazine’s Ben Metcalfe reports that Hubbard soon took a job as a Seattle taxi driver during Prohibition. With a sophisticated ship-to-shore communications system hidden in the trunk of his cab, Hubbard helped rum-runners to successfully ferry booze past the US and Canadian Coast Guards. He was, however, caught by the FBI and went to prison for 18 months.

After his release, Hubbard’s natural talent for electronic communications attracted scouts from Allen Dulles’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Also according to Metcalfe, Hubbard was at least peripherally involved in the Manhattan Project.

The captain was pardoned of any and all wrongdoing by Harry S. Truman under Presidential Pardon #2676, and subsequently became agent Captain Al Hubbard of the OSS. As a maritime specialist, Hubbard was enjoined to ship heavy armaments from San Diego to Canada at night, without lights, in the waning hours of World War II–an operations of dubious legality, which had him facing a Congressional investigation. To escape federal indictment, Hubbard moved to Vancouver and became a Canadian citizen.

Parlaying connections and cash, Hubbard founded Marine Manufacturing, a Vancouver charter-boat concern, and in his early 40s realized his lifelong ambition of becoming a millionaire. By 1950 he was scientific director of the Uranium Corporation of Vancouver, owned his own fleet of aircraft, a 100-foot yacht, and a Canadian island. And he was miserable.

“Al was desperately searching for meaning in his life,” says Willis Harman. Seeking enlightenment, Hubbard returned to an area near Spokane, WA, where he’d spent summers during his youth. He hiked into the woods and an angel purportedly appeared to him in a clearing. “She told Al that something tremendously important to the future of mankind would be coming soon, and that he could play a role in it if he wanted to,” says Harman. “But he hadn’t the faintest clue what he was supposed to be looking for.”

In 1951, reading The Hibberd Journal, a scientific paper of the time, Hubbard stumbled across an article about the behavior of rats given LSD. “He knew that was it,” says Harman. Hubbard went and found the person conducting the experiment, and came back with some LSD for himself. After his very first acid experience, he became a True Believer.

“Hubbard discovered psychedelics as a boon and a sacrament,” recalls Leary.

A 1968 resume states that Hubbard was at various times employed by the Canadian Special Services, the US Justice Department and, ironically, what is now the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Whether he was part of the CIA mind-control project known as MK-ULTRA, might never be known: all paperwork generated in connection with that diabolical experiment was destroyed in ’73 by MK-ULTRA chief Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, on orders from then-CIA Director Richard Helms, citing a “paper crisis.”

Under the auspices of MK-ULTRA the CIA regularly dosed its agents and associates with powerful hallucinogens as a preemptive measure against the Soviets’ own alleged chemical technology, often with disastrous results. The secret project would see at least two deaths: tennis pro Harold Blauer died after a massive injection of MDA; and the army’s own Frank Olson, a biological-warfare specialist, crashed through a closed window in the 12th floor of New York’s Statler Hotel, after drinking cognac laced with LSD during a CIA symposium. Dr. Osmond doubts that Hubbard would have been associated with such a project “not particularly on humanitarian grounds, but on the grounds that it was bad technique.”

[Note: Recently, a researcher for WorldNetDaily and author of a forthcoming book based on the Frank Olson “murder,” revealed to this writer that he has received, via a FOIA request of CIA declassified materials, documents which indicate that Al Hubbard was, indeed, in contact with Dr. Sidney Gottlieb and George Hunter White–an FBI narcotics official who managed Operation Midnight Climax, a joint CIA/FBI blackmail project in which unwitting “johns” were given drinks spiked with LSD by CIA-managed prostitutes, and whose exploits were videotaped from behind two-way mirrors at posh hotels in both New York and San Francisco. The researcher would reveal only that Al Hubbard’s name “appeared in connection with Gottlieb and White, but the material is heavily redacted.”]

Hubbard’s secret connections allowed him to expose over 6,000 people to LSD before it was effectively banned in ’66. He shared the sacrament with a prominent Monsignor of the Catholic Church in North America, explored the roots of alcoholism with AA founder Bill Wilson, and stormed the pearly gates with Aldus Huxley (in a session that resulted in the psychedelic tome Heaven and Hell), as well as supplying most of the Beverly Hills psychiatrists, who, in turn, turned on actors Cary Grant, James Coburn, Jack Nicholson, novelist Anais Nin, and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick.

Laura Huxley met Captain Hubbard for the first time at her and her husband’s Hollywood Hills home in the early 1960s. “He showed up for lunch one afternoon, and he brought with him a portable tank filled with a gas of some kind. He offered some to us,” she recalls, “but we said we didn’t care for any, so he put it down and we all had lunch. He went into the bathroom with the tank after lunch, and breathed into it for about ten seconds. It must have been very concentrated, because he came out revitalized and very jubilant, talking about a vision he had seen of the Virgin Mary.”

“I was convinced that he was the man to bring LSD to planet Earth,” remarks, Myron Stolaroff, who was assistant to the president of long-range planning at Ampex Corporation when he met the captain. Stolaroff learned of Hubbard through philosopher Gerald Heard, a friend and spiritual mentor to Huxley. “Gerald had reached tremendous levels of contemplative prayer, and I didn’t know what in the world he was doing fooling around with drugs.”

Heard had written a letter to Stolaroff, describing the beauty of his psychedelic experience with Al Hubbard. “That letter would be priceless–but Hubbard, I’m sure, arranged to have it stolen…. He was a sonofabitch: God and the Devil, both there in full force.”

Stolaroff was so moved by Heard’s letter that, in ’56, he agreed to take LSD with Hubbard in Vancouver. “After that first LSD experience, I said ‘this is the greatest discovery man has ever made.'”

He was not alone.

Through his interest in aircraft, Hubbard had become friends with a prominent Canadian businessman. The businessman eventually found himself taking LSD with Hubbard and, after coming down, told Hubbard never to worry about money again: He had seen the future, and Al Hubbard was its Acid Messiah.

Hubbard abandoned his uranium empire and, for the next decade, traveled the globe as a psychedelic missionary. “Al’s dream was to open up a worldwide chain of clinics as training grounds for other LSD researchers,” says Stolaroff. His first pilgrimage was to Switzerland, home of Sandoz Laboratories, producers of both Delysid (trade name for LSD) and psilocybin. He procured a gram of LSD (roughly 10,000 doses) and set up shop in a safe-deposit vault in the Zurich airport’s duty-free section. From there he was able to ship quantities of his booty without a tariff to a waiting world.

Swiss officials quickly detained Hubbard for violating the nation’s drug laws, which provided no exemption from the duty-free provision. Myron Stolaroff petitioned Washington for the Captain’s release, but the State Department wanted nothing to do with Al Hubbard. Oddly, when a hearing was held, blue-suited officials from the department were in attendance. The Swiss tribunal declared Hubbard’s passport invalid for five years, and he was deported. Undeterred, Hubbard traveled to Czechoslovakia, where he had another gram of LSD put into tablet form by Chemapol–a division of the pharmaceutical giant Spofa–and then flew west.

Procuring a Ph.D. in biopsychology from a less-than-esteemed academic outlet called Taylor University, the captain became Dr. Alfred M. Hubbard, clinical therapist. In ’57, he met Ross MacLean, medical superintendent of the Hollywood Hospital in New Westminster, Canada. MacLean was so impressed with Hubbard’s knowledge of the human condition that he devoted an entire wing of the hospital to the study of psychedelic therapy for chronic alcoholics.

According to Metcalfe, MacLean was also attracted to the fact that Hubbard was Canada’s sole licensed importer of Sandoz LSD. “I remember seeing Al on the phone in his living room one day. He was elated because the FDA had just given him IND#1,” says one Hubbard confidante upon condition of anonymity.

His Investigational New Drug permit also allowed Hubbard to experiment with LSD in the USA. For the next few years, Hubbard–together with Canadian psychiatrist Abram Hoffer and Dr. Humphry Osmond–pioneered a psychedelic regimen with a recovery rate of between 60% and 70%–far above that of AA or Schick Hospital’s so-called “aversion therapy.” Hubbard would lift mentally-disturbed lifelong alcoholics out of psychosis with a mammoth dose of liquid LSD, letting them view their destructive habits from a completely new vantage point. “As a therapist, he was one of the best,” says Stolaroff, who worked with Hubbard until 1965 at the International Federation for Advanced Study in Menlo Park, California, which he founded after leaving Ampex.

Whereas many LSD practitioners were content to strap their patients onto a 3′ x 6’ cot and have them attempt to perform a battery of mathematical formulae with a head full of LSD, Hubbard believed in a comfortable couch and throw pillows. He also employed icons and symbols to send the experience into a variety of different directions: someone uptight may be asked to look at a photo of a glacier, which would soon melt into blissful relaxation; a person seeking the spiritual would be directed to a picture of Jesus, and enter into a one-on-one relationship with the Savior.

But Hubbard’s days at Hollywood Hospital ended in 1957, not long after they had begun, after a philosophical dispute with Ross MacLean. The suave hospital administrator was getting fat from the $1,000/dose fees charged to Hollywood’s elite patients, who included members of the Canadian Parliament and the American film community. Hubbard, who believed in freely distributing LSD for the world good, felt pressured by MacLean to share in the profits, and ultimately resigned rather than accept an honorarium for his services.

His departure came as the Canadian Medical Association was becoming increasingly suspicious of Hollywood Hospital in the wake of publicity surrounding MK-ULTRA. The Canadian Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights had already discovered one Dr. Harold Abramson, a CIA contract psychiatrist, on the board of MacLean’s International Association for Psychedelic Therapy, and external pressure was weighing on MacLean to release Al Hubbard, the former OSS officer with suspected CIA links. Compounding Hubbard’s plight was the death of his Canadian benefactor, leaving Hubbard with neither an income nor the financial cushion upon which he had become dependent.

His services were eventually recruited by Willis Harman, then-Director of the Educational Policy Research Center within the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) of Stanford University. Harman employed Hubbard as a security guard for SRI, “although,” Harman admits, “Al never did anything resembling security work.”

Hubbard was specifically assigned to the Alternative Futures Project, which performed future-oriented strategic planning for corporations and government agencies. Harman and Hubbard shared a goal “to provide the [LSD] experience to political and intellectual leaders around the world.” Harman acknowledges that “Al’s job was to run the special [LSD] sessions for us.”

According to Dr. Abram Hoffer, “Al had a grandiose idea that if he could give the psychedelic experience to the major executives of the Fortune 500 companies, he would change the whole of society.”

Hubbard’s tenure at SRI was uneasy. The political bent of the Stanford think-tank was decidedly left-wing, clashing sharply with Hubbard’s own world-perspective. “Al was really an arch-conservative,” says the confidential source. “He really didn’t like what the hippies were doing with LSD, and he held Timothy Leary in great contempt.”

Humphry Osmond recalls a particular psilocybin session in which “Al got greatly preoccupied with the idea that he ought to shoot Timothy, and when I began to reason with him that this would be a very bad idea…I became much concerned that he might shoot me…”

“To Al,” says Myron Stolaroff, “LSD enabled man to see his true self, his true nature and the true order of things.” But, to Hubbard, the true order of things had little to do with the antics of the American Left.

Recognizing its potential psychic hazards, Hubbard believed that LSD should be administered and monitored by trained professionals. He claimed that he had stockpiled more LSD than anyone on the planet besides Sandoz–including the US government–and he clearly wanted a firm hand in influencing the way it was used. However, Hubbard refused all opportunities to become the LSD Philosopher-King. Whereas Leary would naturally gravitate toward any microphone available, Hubbard preferred the role of the silent curandero, providing the means for the experience, and letting voyagers decipher its meaning for themselves. When cornered by a video camera shortly before this death, and asked to say something to the future, Hubbard replied simply, “You’re the future.”

In March of 1966, the cold winds of Congress blew out all hope for Al Hubbard’s enlightened Mother Earth. Facing a storm of protest brought on by Leary’s reckless antics and the “LSD-related suicide” of Diane Linkletter, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Drug Abuse Control Amendment, which declared lysergic acid diethylamide a Schedule I substance; simple possession was deemed a felony, punishable by 15 years in prison. According to Humphry Osmond, Hubbard lobbied Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, who reportedly took the cause of LSD into the Senate chambers, and emerged un-victorious.

“ [The government] had a deep fear of having their picture of reality challenged ,” mourns Harman. “It had nothing to do with people harming their lives with chemicals–because if you took all the people who had ever had any harmful effects from psychedelics, it’s minuscule compared to those associated with alcohol and tobacco.”

FDA chief James L. Goddard ordered agents to seize all remaining psychedelics not accounted for by Sandoz. “It was scary,” recalls Dr. Oscar Janiger, whose Beverly Hills office was raided and years’ worth of clinical research confiscated.

Hubbard begged Abram Hoffer to let him hide his supply in Hoffer’s Canadian Psychiatric Facility. But the doctor refused, and its believed that Hubbard sent most of his LSD back to Switzerland, rather than risk prosecution. When the panic subsided, only five government-approved scientists were allowed to continue LSD research–none using humans, and none of them associated with Al Hubbard. In 1968, his finances in ruins, Hubbard was forced to sell his private island sanctuary for what one close friend termed “a pittance.” He filled a number of boats with the antiquated electronics used in his eccentric nuclear experiments , and left Daymen Island for California. Hubbard’s efforts in his last decade were effectively wasted, according to most of his friends. Lack of both finances and government permit to resume research crippled all remaining projects he may have had in the hopper.

After SRI canceled his contract in 1974 Hubbard went into semi-retirement, splitting his time between a 5-acre ranch in Vancouver and an apartment in Menlo Park. But in 1978, battling an enlarged heart and never far away from a bottle of pure oxygen, Hubbard made one last run at the FDA. He applied for an IND to use LSD-25 on terminal cancer patients, furnishing the FDA with two decades of clinical documentation. The FDA set the application aside, pending the addition to Hubbard’s team of a medical doctor, a supervised medical regimen, and an AMA-accredited hospital. Hubbard secured the help of Oscar Janiger, but the two could not agree on methodology, and Janiger bowed out, leaving Al Hubbard, in his late 70s, without the strength to carry on alone.

Says Willis Harman: “He knew that his work was done.”

On August 31, 1982, at the age of 81, Al Hubbard was called home, having ridden the dream like a rodeo cowboy. On very quiet nights, with the right kind of ears, you can hear him giving God hell.

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