The ''Yellow Thing'' is a double-hulled floating vessel (like a catamaran), used by Greenpeace to sample marine debris. As of 2006, its primary mission is to be used as a trawl for plastic samples in areas such as the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ...

and the

North Pacific Gyre The North Pacific Gyre (NPG) or North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), located in the northern Pacific Ocean, is one of the five major oceanic gyres. This gyre covers most of the northern Pacific Ocean. It is the largest ecosystem on Earth, locate ...

. It is no
self-powered
rather it is towed via a ship-attached boom (as of 3-2006, it was being used on the MV ''Esperanza''). It is also considered to be relatively stable as a marine vehicle.

References

"What is the Yellow Thing?"Reuters report on Greenpeace trawling study
Individual catamarans Ships of Greenpeace {{ship-stub