Friday, September 21, 2012

Cue the ominous music, this is about to go bad


The Gopro waterproof camera has spawned a new sub sub sub genre on youtube - the ‘Gopro laser sailing video.’ There is vision from  mast tops, bows, overhanging sterns, hats and my favourite - off the boom.  Many of these  youtube videos are just raw footage, short and unsatisfying, but every now and again then one turns up that is entertaining, educational, and funny.   

That is not to say that raw footage cannot worthwhile. There is an exceptional four part series of hat-cam videos by Doug Peckover competing in the 2012 Australian Nationals
See them and Brett Beyer’s analysis at
http://www.impropercourse.com/2012/03/brett-beyer-coaching.html

You have to be a Laser sailing tragic to get into them, but hey thats the life we choose.

One of my favourite laser videos is the ‘The Comeback That Wasn’t’ by Fleet Co Club Captain Stuart Streuli. It has music, commentary, drama, comedy or perhaps pathos, all in 6 minutes.

Described as A roller coaster ride of a Laser Fleet 413 frostbite race that looks great, then bad, then OK, then good, then ultimately ends in disappointment.

There is drama at the top mark - ‘cue the ominous music, this is about to go bad’. The breeze is only 8 knots so no one dies.


3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the 413 video - it was nice to see a video of a normal mortal instead of Slingsby and a fleet of competitors all of whom do things with their boats that just defy reality as I know it.

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  2. Hey, I'm a member of Fleet 413. How dare you say that we defy reality. I am as real as the next normal mortal.

    And what this expressions "Laser sailing tragic"? Is that Ozzie dialect for "amazing god-like superhero"?

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  3. We are just living the dream, although last weekend in 20 knots the 'amazing god-like superhero' was more the 'sailing tragic' on a boat that that was too often wrong way up.

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