Island Lab is a format: a small cohort, a working boat, a real place, and an obligation to make something before the week ends. The format is the asset; we are its current stewards.
We have spent enough time in gatherings (conferences, retreats, residencies, founder dinners) to notice which ones produced something and which ones produced the performance of producing something. Almost all of them performed; a few did not. The ones that did had something in common: a small group, a real place, a constraint, and an obligation to make something before the week ended.
Island Lab is an attempt to do that on purpose: to take the conditions we have seen produce something real, and design for them deliberately. The boat, the islands, and the small cohort are all part of the design, and what gets made by the end of the week is the proof that the design was right.
The format is meant to outlast any one cohort, any one host, and any one boat. We are aiming for something that works because of how it is built, not because of who happens to be running it.
The values doc says it plainly: hosts as vehicle, not center of gravity. The format is designed so that it works without us, and so that a future Island Lab without us at the helm could still run. This version happens to be run by the two of us, so it feels right to say who, briefly.
Sean makes tools to help communities explore new horizons. He is the co-founder of Astraeus Ocean Systems and consults on climate technology and coastal systems.
His work spans ocean technology, climate strategy, and community building: translating dense environmental data into the kind of insight a community can actually act on.
For Island Lab he holds the engineering of the format itself: the boat, the logistics, the rigging that lets a gathering happen at all.
Kate designs systems for extreme environments. Half the year she works as crew aboard the 77-foot schooner Amundsen with Pelagic Expeditions, sailing to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
Her work centers on systems that have to hold under pressure, shaped by years of operating in places where failure isn't an option. The discipline of polar sailing (small group, real weather, no shore) shows up in how Island Lab is run.
For Island Lab she holds the design of the program: cohort, rhythm, the shape of the days, what gets made.
We live in Seattle. The boat lives at Shilshole. In the summers we move between the San Juans and the Gulf Islands, and increasingly between people who are paying attention to the same things we are.
Outside Island Lab, we run a small design and strategy studio at the intersection of coastal systems and community resilience. Sailing log, longer essays, client work, and the questions we are still chewing on all live there. Island Lab is the gathering format; Salt and Snow is the ongoing practice that makes the format possible.
Design and strategy for the spaces where land meets water. Coastal systems, ocean technology, community engagement, expedition learning. The slower record alongside the work.
saltandsnow.dev →Sound Experience operates the schooner Adventuress out of Port Townsend and is the partner for the September 2026 voyage. They run the ship and hold safety. We run the program. The pricing is structured so that the cohort subsidizes the partnership and helps warm relationships toward their $10M campaign.
In the Salish Sea, we are building relationships with the institutions and clubs whose waterfront and work we share. Friday Harbor Labs anchors a century of marine research in the San Juans. The Northwest Maritime Center stewards traditional and emerging maritime craft from Port Townsend, and runs the Race to Alaska, the engineless 750-mile run that shaped much of how we think about adventure as a form of attention. Sloop Tavern Yacht Club in Ballard keeps an ethos close to our own: the boat and the people sailing it matter more than the gear.