Thursday, July 22, 2010

34th America's Cup Media & Race Trials

Greetings from warm and sunny Valencia. There might be no updates until late in the afternoon as I willl, most probably, be following BMW Oracle's first day of trials off the Malvarosa beach.

On this first day of the trials, according to the official America's Cup press release, the two RC44 "high-performance monohulls" will be on Valencia's waters and James Spithill will be driving Boat 17. I don't know who will be helming the other yacht. Always according to the same release, the TV crew will have a total of 11 cameras, some fixed on the yachts, others held by cameramen.

Most probably BMW Oracle will not reinvent the wheel in TV coverage. For example, take the boom camera. Nico Martinez, the famous Spanish photographer, tried that almost 2 years ago on the exact same boats during the RC44 Gold Cup in Puerto Calero. I was there personally when he was trying to devise a way to attach his photo camera on the boom and I remember very well the resistance he encountered by some of the teams when he proposed his idea. In the photo below you can actually see Nico at the stern of the boat, pressing on the remote control to take the picture. Imagine what footage one can get with an HD video camera from that point.

What does the boom camera look like on an RC44? Well Nico Martinez did that almost 2 years ago in Puerto Calero

The mast cam and the bow cam are no novelties either, they have been used in the World Match Racing Tour for a couple of years now.

Still, I think that the best aspect of what BMW Oracle is trying here in Valencia is just the fact they are openly testing all those ideas with an open mind towards making TV coverage the best possible. Even if they are testing technologies and ideas that have already been separately tested before, making the combination of them available and, why not, compulsory in the next Cup is by far the biggest advance.

I find it absurd that in 2010 there can still be people in the sport of sailing that don't want onboard cameras and microphones. The best and smallest GoPro HD video camera costs less than 200 euros and can result in some incredible footage. If an America's Cup team think it's an expensive toy, they can cut one fancy dinner and get the budget for it.

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6 Comments:

At 3:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that they would get a whole lot more exciting shots if they could train up a pod of whales to randomly attack the boats in a specified section of the race track - only the toughest survive ?

 
At 5:00 PM, Blogger WetHog said...

Intersting comment you made at the end of this post Mr. Pierre about possible AC teams seeing video technology as an expensive toy that is not needed because it will raise costs. Comments like that will get the Alinghi LapDogs out in force on here calling you an ignorant ass for suggesting a team make room in their budget that could positively enhance AC racing by cutting something else.

I made a similar point when I suggested that prospective AC teams move to the suburbs of San Francisco if they are concerned about the high cost of living in SF, because SF Bay has the potential to be the greatest veune in the history of the AC in regards to spectator access. As a result I was labeled a dumb American by the usual Euro-trash that frequent this site looking for the AC gravy train to get rolling again.

As for the trials, hopefully BMWO will have some video footage up on their blog soon after todays tests are completed.

 
At 7:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wet Hog

So BMWOR is not a gravy train?

I guess you qualify as a BMWOR lap dog

 
At 10:37 PM, Anonymous Doug said...

WetHog,

the war is over, man.

Got any proof for who is Euro-trash and who is not and how many frequent this or any other site? That comment does you no favors Hog.

 
At 11:27 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

wethog, you are hopeless. The biggest resistance for tv cam and microphone for the 32AC came from BOR.

Coutts also was opposed when he still was Alinghi. He will argue you may hear some rough language.

This has nothing to do being a supporter of Alinghi or not.
SImply, as Pierre says, sailors needs education. If Coutts has by now been educated, good. But still don't try to gain any glory out of this move. It just is normal.

 
At 9:53 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmmm - i've spent years mounting camera's onboard boats and have all season been mounting HD camera's on the boom/mast/pole etc etc of the RC44 boats! Nothing new with anything tried in Valencia as far as I can tell apart from the 3D stuff.

 

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