To fully capitalize sea experiments, a channel model driven by real data is presented. This model relies on the assumption that a channel recorded at sea is a single observation of an underlying random process. From this single observation, the channel statistical properties are estimated to then drive a stochastic simulator that generates multiple realizations of the underlying process. Such an approach offers the ability to test underwater communication systems under controlled and reproducible laboratory conditions while guaranteeing a realistic simulation environment. To be as close as possible to the true ocean statistical properties, the often invoked wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS)assumption is relaxed. The analyzed channels are shown to be trend stationary and the scatterers are assumed to be potentially correlated.