TEMPLE OF THE SEA PRESENTED TO PRINCE ALBERT II DURING MONACO OCEAN WEEK 2026

L. M. Levie reflected on his inspiration for The Temple of the Sea:

"My first visit to the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco moved me in a way I had never anticipated. To stand inside that majestic palace, perched above the Mediterranean which it was built to honor, is to feel the unmistakable presence of a vision still very much alive. Every gallery, every specimen, every quiet corridor seems to whisper that the ocean is not a backdrop to human life but its very wellspring - and that we are its stewards, not its sovereigns.

What deepened my wonder was learning of the museum's scholarly patron, Prince Albert I of Monaco - the 'Navigator Prince' - who, more than a century ago, devoted his life and his throne to the study and protection of the seas. At a time when the oceans were largely regarded as inexhaustible, he warned, with a conviction far ahead of his era, that humanity had a duty to safeguard their riches. He was a sovereign, a scientist, and a humanitarian, and the institution he founded in 1910 remains a luminous monument to that pioneering spirit.

It is therefore an extraordinary honor to serve alongside my dear friend, His Serene Highness Prince Albert II on the Board of Trustees of The Explorers Club - an institution his great-great-grandfather Prince Albert I, the founder of the Oceanographic Museum and a cherished member of our Club, helped to inspire through his own pioneering example. To witness Prince Albert II carry that legacy forward, with the same quiet conviction and the same global vision, is to see history not preserved behind glass but lived anew, generation after generation, in service of the ocean and of humankind.

It was from these memories that Temple of the Sea was born. The work - for which I composed the lyrics, the music, and the orchestration - is my homage to the Oceanographic Museum and Institute, to the seas it celebrates, and to the royal visionary who imagined it: a temple, in his own words, dedicated to the sea."

Key Highlights of the 2026 Collaboration

• The 6th YCM Explorer Awards. Chaired by Richard Wiese, President of The Explorers Club, the awards honored yacht owners who have dedicated their vessels to scientific research and field exploration.

• Decarbonization at Sea. Technical sessions focused on the SEA Index®, a carbon-rating tool now becoming a standard for superyachts committed to reducing their environmental footprint.

• "Monaco, Capital of Advanced Yachting." This year's event further solidified the YCM's role as a global hub for eco-responsible yachting and innovation in maritime technology

The partnership between The Explorers Club and the Yacht Club de Monaco will continue throughout 2026, with the YCM's flagship Tuiga scheduled to visit New York City in July to mark further joint scientific and cultural milestones, including programming organized in coordination with The Explorers Club's historic headquarters at 46 East 70th Street.

About The Explorers Club

Founded in 1904, The Explorers Club is a prestigious international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. Based at its historic headquarters in New York City, the Club has served as a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide for over a century.

The Club's membership includes many of history's most renowned explorers and scientists, from polar explorers Robert Peary and Roald Amundsen to oceanic pioneers Jacques Cousteau and Robert Ballard, from aviation legends Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart to space pioneers like Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Jim Lovell. The Club continues to support cutting-edge exploration in every realm - from the deepest ocean trenches to the highest peaks, from archaeological discoveries to space missions.

The Explorers Club is renowned for its rigorous standards of membership, requiring nominees to have made significant contributions to exploration or the sciences that advance our understanding of the world. The Club's Board of Trustees, Legacy Society, and various committees work to preserve the Club's mission while fostering new generations of explorers through grants, expeditions, and educational programs.

The Club's famous annual dinner, featuring exotic cuisine and presentations by leading explorers, has become legendary in New York society. More importantly, The Explorers Club continues to fund and support expeditions that push the boundaries of human knowledge, from climate research in Antarctica to biodiversity studies in remote rainforests to preparations for future Mars missions.

AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie serves as Member of its Board of Trustees and as Poet Laureate and Member of its Legacy Society. As Poet Laureate, Mr. Levie contributes to the Club's cultural mission by capturing the spirit of exploration through verse, honoring both historical achievements and contemporary discoveries that continue to expand the frontiers of human knowledge and experience. He has composed musical tributes to Sir Ernest Shackleton, Jane Goodall, Commander Jim Lovell, Captain Fred McLaren, Hamish Harding, Odysseus, Grand Duke Guillaume of Luxembourg, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sylvia Earle, along with noted institutions, landmarks and regions.

For further information, please see:

https://www.explorers.org

About the Yacht Club de Monaco

Founded in 1953 by His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III and presided over since 1984 by H.S.H. Prince Sovereign Albert II of Monaco, the Yacht Club de Monaco unites approximately 2,500 members from more than 80 nationalities, including owners and captains of many of the world's most prestigious private yachts. The Club draws on a princely tradition of seafaring that stretches back more than seven centuries - from Rainier I, raised to the rank of Admiral of France in 1304, through Prince Honoré II and Prince Albert I, the renowned "oceanographer prince" - and today occupies a singular position at the center of international yachting.

An emblematic Monegasque institution housed in a striking modern clubhouse on Quai Louis II that resembles an ocean liner, the Yacht Club de Monaco operates simultaneously as an exclusive members' club and as a public service delegation of the Principality. Its remit includes the promotion of responsible yachting, the stewardship of Monaco's maritime heritage, and the active development of the yachting sector as a pillar of Monaco's identity and economy. The Club's flagship is Tuiga, a 28-meter classic schooner built in 1909 in Scotland, acquired and restored by the YCM in 1995 and a celebrated ambassador of the Club at classic regattas across the Mediterranean and beyond.

Under the presidency of H.S.H. Prince Albert II, the YCM has become a global leader in eco-responsible yachting through its umbrella initiative "Monaco, Capital of Advanced Yachting," and has championed innovations including the SEA Index®, a standardized carbon-rating system for superyachts that is rapidly becoming the industry benchmark for environmental performance. The Club organizes the biennial Monaco Classic Week - La Belle Classe, the YCM Explorer Awards honoring yacht owners who dedicate their vessels to scientific research, and a wide range of regattas and powerboat events. Since 2019, the YCM has been entrusted with the yachting component of Monaco Ocean Week, organized under the initiative of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation alongside the princely government, the Monaco Oceanographic Institute, and the Monaco Scientific Centre.

For further information, please see:

https://yacht-club-monaco.mc

About the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco

Founded by H.S.H. Prince Albert I and inaugurated on 29 March 1910 after more than a decade of construction, the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco is one of the world's preeminent institutions dedicated to marine science, ocean conservation, and the public understanding of the sea. Conceived by Prince Albert I - sailor, scholar, and recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern oceanography - as a "Palace entirely dedicated to Art and Science," the Museum forms part of the Institut Océanographique, the foundation he established in 1906, alongside its sister institution, the Maison des Océans in Paris.

The Museum's monumental neoclassical building, designed by the architect Paul Delefortrie and constructed of more than 100,000 tons of La Turbie limestone, descends 85 meters along the celebrated cliff of the Rocher of Monaco and rises sheer above the Mediterranean. From the flourishes on its façades to the marine motifs of its halls, every aspect of its architecture evokes the world of the sea - earning it the historic and affectionate sobriquet "Temple of the Sea." More than half of its natural history collections consist of specimens gathered by Prince Albert I during the 28 oceanographic campaigns he led between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From 1957 to 1988, the Museum was directed by the legendary Commandant Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who further established its standing as a global focal point for oceanographic research and public engagement.

Today, the Museum welcomes more than 700,000 visitors each year to 6,500 square meters of public exhibition space, with ninety aquarium pools home to over 6,000 specimens of more than 350 species, the Salle Albert Ier devoted to the founder's life and expeditions, the Cabinet of Curiosities Oceanomania, and a Marine Animal Rescue Centre opened in 2019. Faithful to Prince Albert I's founding motto - "to know, love, and protect the oceans" - and supported by H.S.H. Prince Albert II's longstanding commitment to ocean stewardship through the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, the Museum continues to serve as a beacon of marine science, environmental advocacy, and cultural celebration of the sea.

For further information, please see:

https://www.oceano.org

About American Industrial Acquisition Corporation

American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) is a diversified industrial group with manufacturing and distribution sites in 24 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia-New Zealand. AIAC has acquired and grown non-core subsidiaries and divisions of Boeing, Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Johnson Controls, Merck, Pfizer, Astellas, Visteon, Carlyle, Ahlstrom, Tolko, Groupe Suez, Groupe Rexel, and many other leading multinational corporations.

AIAC companies serve companies and governmental entities worldwide in all major sectors, including aviation, space, defense, automotive, truck, rail, marine, petrochemical, solar, nuclear, food, confectionary, beverage, civil engineering and infrastructure, commercial construction, mining, dredging, disaster relief, education, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, AIAC companies are exclusive, authorized distributors of leading branded industrial and consumer products and serve as critical suppliers for the construction of major airports, schools, hospitals, performing arts and sports centers, offices and hotels throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. AIAC is a leading manufacturer of building, street, and highway signage in Europe, and a distributor of electrical products throughout France.

Of note, AIAC purchased Boeing Canada in 2005 and has produced over 10,000 unique components for every Boeing jet plane ever since, reliably serving Boeing from manufacturing facilities in North America. A leader in ultra-high precision jet engine component manufacturing, AIAC companies produce 2,200 fan blades for each jet engine produced by GE, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and Honeywell.

AIAC companies actively support exploration into outer space, manufacturing critical components for launching and propelling spacecraft and satellites. AIAC customers in this sector include NASA, the European Space Agency, SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Boeing. AIAC affiliate, Champlain Cable Corporation, supported the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space missions with high performance wire and cable. AIAC companies also lead in the design and manufacture of undersea umbilical cables for worldwide oceanographic research.

AIAC companies produce the critical automotive wire and cable for Tesla, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Fiat, Toyota, and Nissan. In connection with its kraft paper manufacturing interests in Canada and the US, AIAC sustainably manages 22 million acres of Manitoba, Canada forestland, an area equivalent in size to the nation of Hungary.

AIAC affiliate, Metallwarenfabrik Gemmingen GmbH, located in Germany, designs, manufactures and distributes high performance, emergency portable power generators utilized in global conflict zones and during natural disasters.

For further information, please see:

www.aiac.com

About AIAC Philanthropy

AIAC and the AIAC Foundation support a wide range of nonprofit, nonsectarian, bipartisan organizations which promote international conflict resolution, disaster relief, economic development, environmental sustainability, exploration, and the performing arts.

The exploration-focused nonprofit organizations which they actively support include The Explorers Club, the National Geographic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Space Society, and the United States Space Foundation.

AIAC's other beneficiaries include the Appeal of the Nobel Peace Laureates Foundation Inc., the Asia Society, the Atlantic Council, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - Gates Philanthropy Partners, the Bretton Woods Committee, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Carter Center, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Foreign Policy Association, the Institut Française des Relations Internationales, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Crisis Group, the International Rescue Committee, the Japan Society, the JFK School of Government of Harvard University, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), the Sierra Club, the Trilateral Commission, and the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute.

For further information, please see:

https://www.aiac.com/our-values

Media Contact:

Isabel Carro-Toro,
Vice President
American Industrial Acquisition Corporation
+34 689 295 827 (Spain)
+1 787 244 3175 (USA)
[email protected]