Wednesday 25 March 2009

Sailing large

The other day after some difficult moments in the waves, I had a sweet, sweet sail. There was just time for the usual six-mile triangle—one long windward beat offshore, then another upwind leg on the opposite tack, and finally a delicious downwind run back to the beach.

I have a new camera that, being waterproof, takes all the worry out of filming aboard. Here’s a one-minute film of Onawind Blue galloping home.


8 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for posting that. I always enjoy watching the short clips of small sailing craft on the web, but this one really brought a smile to my face this morning! The music dubbed in as the camera went under water was a great touch!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful!

Complete with visual verification that you have a center board this time. :)

A lot more fun than last week!

Don't be afraid of showing us more like this.

The Beez said...

What kind of camera are you using?

Gavin said...

Lovely Ben - but don't drop that camera!

Gav

Chris Partridge said...

I would like to know what camera you used as well. And how did you take the underwater shots - was it simply by holding the camera over the side and hoping, or did you have a more high tech arrangement?

Ben said...

It’s an Olympus µ 1030 SW. Waterproof to 3 metres and shockproof, with 10 mega pixels. The trade off is a mediocre lens and zoom. It is also quite slow between photos and settings. It has 3 options for underwater photography and I actually think that it takes better photos under water than above. I needed a camera that I didn’t have to worry about on the boat having lost one already to water damage, I read somewhere that this one could be used by a child on the beach and be unharmed by sand or water.
On board OB the camera is tied to a long length of line so if it does slip out of my hand it doesn’t go to the bottom, that’s as high tech as it gets.
Though the video looks like one continuous shot, expect for the cross-dissolve ¼ of the way through, the underwater shots are edited in. I was out sailing and experimenting with trying to film the underside of the boat just holding the camera in the water, these were the best two sequences.
Expect to see more underwater photography. When the water warms up I’ll be out snapping the jellyfish.

Guy AJ Capra (Alomphega) said...

Amazing movie, Ben, thank you very much !

The next step : to use a kite to attach the cam and to film your entire boat with the sailor in activity from the sky ?

Take care and best wishes,
Guy.

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