Since 1985, Alcyone has been The Cousteau Society's expedition ship. La Rochelle, France, is her home port. Alcyone's success celebrates not just the wedding of hydrodynamics and aerodynamics, it also marks the entry of electronics and computers into the maritime world. Beginning in 1980, Captain Cousteau's teams, in France and in the US, began refining a concept of economical propulsion for ships using the wind as a supplementary energy source. This revolutionary system, the Turbosail^TM allows for fossil-fuel savings of up to 35 percent. The ship's designers sought a compromise between a monohull and a catamaran, which would be perfectly adapted to the mixed propulsion system.