The WAVE (Wave-powered Autonomous Vehicle for marine Exploration) project involves the development of a novel hybrid oceanographic glider/Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with power recharging capabilities from environmental renewable sources, aiming at enhancing the endurance of a typical marine mission. In this paper we present a brief description of the project, and the steps followed in the realization of the first version of the vehicle. The results emerged after a preliminary sea-trial of the prototype show the practical feasibility of the proposed approach.