The crew acting as film stars

It's a sport with the pace and excitement of Formula 1, the endurance of mountain climbing, and the nail-biting psychological intensity of a Hollywood thriller. The only snag is how to bring all the action home to audiences given that most of it takes place thousands of miles from the nearest port, says media writer David Wood.

"Iceberg on the bow!"
It's evening watch, last half hour, it's getting dark, last light. The navigator sticks his head up the hatch and says "iceberg on the bow”. You say: "how far?” He says "one mile”. One mile at 25 knots, you don't even want to think about it. The sweat is running down the back of your neck, your feet are like ice blocks, your hands are like ice blocks, your face is raw red from the salt spray and all of a sudden you are being told "iceberg on the bow, one mile” It was the scariest thing in my life." Team News Corp helmsman Gordon McGuire's account of his encounter with an iceberg in the Southern Ocean is just a taste of what the Volvo Ocean Race can provide.

Catch the action
It's no surprise to learn that many of the most dramatic events that took place on the Volvo Ocean Race 2001-02 went unrecorded. The mast is over the side and along with it your crew's hopes of a leg win. The priority is to cut it free to stop it making a hole in the hull and then build a jury rig. Think you'd have time to pop down below to fetch a handheld camera and catch the action for the viewers at home? Probably not!

Crash recording
This time around, the race organisers have a new plan for capturing the unexpected – crash recording, known more technically as Digital Delay Video Recording (DDVR). It is the brainchild of Steve Selfe and Tristan Wood, and one of many innovations from communications specialist Livewire Digital for the next year's race. Livewire Digital managing director Tristan Wood explains: "Throughout the race, a camera in the stern will record constantly, and keep the last few minutes of action in a temporary memory. When the boats are under pressure crew members can punch various ‘panic buttons' fitted around the yacht, which will store this memory directly to permanent storage.”

Recording facilities unpopular with crews
Although continuous onboard recording facilities are not new, they have never been popular with crews because of the energy demands they place on yachts. Wood hopes this is all about to change. "Because batteries have to be recharged regularly from diesel generators, everything that is not critical to sailing – including the media stations – tend to be switched off in favour of control and navigational equipment.”

Keep the cameras rolling
But Livewire's communications experts have now come up with a much more energy-efficient way of keeping the cameras rolling and have made power management an essential design element for the media centres on the Volvo 70 class yachts. The new design allows the media centre to be run at twenty times less power than in previous races. Wood comments: "Hopefully this will convince the teams that it is quite safe to leave the media centre on in this mode at all times.”

Need to fire popular imagination
The technical difficulty in covering the race is certainly one reason why, up until now, its media potential has never been fully exploited. That is something that race organisers aim to put right for the next race. Recently they took a huge step forwards by hiring award-winning sport producer Sunset + Vine to handle the coverage. Managing director John Leach, is in no doubt that he can give yacht racing a wider appeal. "In the past The Whitbread, predecessor to the Volvo Ocean Race, suffered from people thinking it's just for sailing folk, but we need to fire the popular imagination,” he says. "For a start, we are going to explain sailing a lot more than it has been up to now. We are going to demystify sailing – for example by showing sailing exercises on shore to illustrate how tough it is. During races we will explain much more carefully what is happening.”

Satisfying casual viewers and traditional sailors
Over the 31,000-mile course, which follows the old clipper trading routes, the aim is to produce a weekly 30-minute update show explaining who is in the lead, who has had a bust up, and who's going to be late. It should be simple enough to be of interest to the casual viewer but not dumbed down to such an extent that it alienates traditional sailors. Then there will be nine one-hour documentaries called Life at the Extremes, which will focus more on the race's human interest stories.

Big-Brother on board
Sunset + Vine's Leach has a trump card up his sleeve which could really turn the Volvo Ocean Race into a prime time viewing phenomenon, if the technology can deliver it – a Big Brother-style reality TV version of the race. Over the next year the producer hopes to do a deal with a major broadcast channel for a live reality show – a kind of Big Brother at Sea. "It will allow you to tap constantly into what's happening, 24 hours a day, and then create a weekly highlights programme. It's almost the next step – instead of artificially constructed reality, like Big Brother, it would be real!” Whether or not viewers will be allowed to vote off their least favourite crewmembers during the ocean legs remains to be seen.

Seven fixed cameras...
Each yacht will now have seven fixed cameras and possibly a head-cam. There will be one camera in the mast, looking back at the stern, which has an auto horizon day-and-night vision, and a powerful infra-red illuminator. The second camera on the first spreaders is a remote-controlled dome cam, which can pan and tilt to provide an overview of the action onboard. And the remote control is true to its word; it can be controlled from Race HQ via satellite. The third camera will be fitted in the stern looking forward, and just like the first mast camera, will be fitted with an auto horizon day-and-night vision, and a powerful IR illuminator. The fourth camera will be fitted in the steps to the crew's quarters to show the cramped conditions they live in from day to day. Two new diary cams will be mounted in the media station and the navigation areas – combined with the built-in radio microphone – they will act as the crew's ‘confessional. The seventh camera could be positioned in the toilet.

...and a microphone
Another confessional? Last – but not least – the new headcam will send pictures by microwave to the yacht's media centre. Weighing in at only 300 grams, it replaces the one-kilo hand held camera, which many found awkward to use last time around. And its innovative design allows the camera to be detached from the helmet and mounted practically anywhere on the boat. As it will transmit for up to five hours, it could be left up the mast all day to provide those grandiose birds-eye views. And, just to be certain that nothing of the cheerful banter of the crew is missed, just under the hatch there will be a powerful gun microphone.

Multi-tasked, multi-talented
For professional sailors, the problem with juggling the responsibility of sailing a 70ft yacht at the same time as filming events is that all the best action usually happens at the busiest time. "It's usually in tough conditions, when you are busy trying to keep the boat under control,' explains Ray Davies, helmsman and media man on illbruck.

Iceberg shots
Davies' best shots from the last Volvo Ocean Race came when the crew on illbruck was sailing to the leeward side of a huge iceberg. "We were weaving in and out of the growlers that had broken off and the crew were all on deck and looking quite anxious,” recalls Davies, who captured the sequence on a hand held camera. But Davies makes light of his multi-tasked role. "Everybody on board needs to be multi-talented these days,” he says. "With modern technology it's pretty easy to point and shoot the cameras. It's all about making sure you are well organised so you can capture the hairy moments.”

Plenty of excitement and moments of high tension
But all he managed to capture of the incident on the Sydney-Hobart leg when a huge waterspout headed for the fleet was three pictures from a still camera before he was pressed into action. And, while in a nine-month round the world race in some pretty atrocious conditions there is guaranteed to be plenty of excitement and moments of high tension, Davies insists it was also important to transmit a feeling of the crew's ordinary routine. Things to avoid, according to Davies, are "a million and one shots of the ocean” beautiful though it is. We wanted footage of people doing things, like changing sails or simply capturing life on board,” he explains.

Filming irritates crew members
Davies adds that a problem was the irritation that filming caused to some crew members. "Many simply want to race the boat and are not interested in the media side of things. But crews have to understand that, if the sponsor is going to achieve anything out of it, they really have got to put things on film. The whole crew has to be on board and be prepared to give interviews. When things happen, they have to be prepared to talk through it, and I think they are beginning to come around.”

Source: www.volvooceanrace.com
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