I imagine you're trying to get a video like this one?



How are you going to attach the camera so that it doesn't fall off?

Something like this?

Videos don't work. "Embedding disabled by request"

sailquik said...

Videos don't work. "Embedding disabled by request"

Hmm that's weird. Ok try pasting this in manually:

Hey Mr T have you had a chance to try that new fin you won at GPSTC ?
If you don't want/need it i'm willing to relieve you of it.

Crickey!

My own team mate and a typical Pinna boy having a crack at a cripple

Yes Baldy, only once and it seemed good but to be honest I dont have the feel yet for these things, it could be a windier day or less choppy and as I have not sailed much this season I have no idea..... I need to learn more about "How to trim the rig" and understand the changes that will happen to the kit.

Cheers GT

sailquik said...

Let me see...how does it go. You lay down in the shallows while I blast past cm away on the edge at 40+ knots. Yea sure. I think I can handle that!

Actually that's fairly close to what I had in mind.

Naturally I'm thinking a few common-sense rules would need to apply to make sure there's little-to-no risk involved.

1) People would need to pass 3m or more away from the camera for the following reasons:

1a) obviously for safety -> most of the decent speed-sailors at Sandy Point can hold their course to within 50cm of where they want to go, so 3m away from an upwind camera should be far more than enough room for you to pass safely

1b) if you pass within 2m or less of the camera -> sorry, that's too close and game over for you. You're not getting any footage even if I've got half an hour of awesome clips of your passes on the camera.

1c) the angle we most want to see is when the fin is directly opposite the camera (so we can see what cavitation is going on), and an object passing at ~80kmh within 1m or less of the camera would flash past so fast it would be almost impossible to rotate the camera fast enough to actually keep the fin in frame at the point that we most want to view it at -> however a fin passing further away (e.g. 3m or more) would pass relatively slower, and you'd have a much better chance of keeping it in frame with some degree of accuracy, plus it would give the camera's autofocus mechanism more time to keep the object in good focus as it went past.

2) The camera's only about 8cm tall, so I'm thinking if I rest it on the bottom in the shallow's (say 12cm of water), with me kneeling behind it up on the bank and rotate it as a person goes past, this will allow two things to happen
- the bottom will act like a tripod and contribute to a nice level panning effect as I rotate the camera.
- as most speed fins are 18cm or greater in length you'll likely have crashed before you get into water shallow enough to have a chance of collecting the camera and me as well.

3) If you get in trouble during your run, you must bear away from the bank to recover; no bearing in to the bank near where I'm filming -> if you do, once again, sorry, but that's game over for you.

4) I'll only agree to try and film certain people who I believe are competent enough to pass me safely while I'm filming - when other's pass I'll just step back up onto the bank and out of their way.
- from what I gather, pretty much all of the collision's and near misses at Sandy have occurred between two moving sailors (be they both windsurfers, kitesurfers, or a mix of the two) -> I've never heard of or have seen any sailor collect another one that was stationary (for a good length of time beforehand) and up on the bank. Hence why I believe there wouldn't be much actual risk involved with me filming people from a static position up on the bank in ankle deep water. If I'm wrong and people have been collected even though they've stopped in the middle of walking their rig back up the bank in order to let someone pass, please let me know.

5) Lastly I'd actually like to see a bit of reciprocity here - I film you, you film me. Each of the people involved would need to take a stint behind the lens so we can all see what's going on underneath our own boards, and so that we can all hopefully improve on it a little.

There may be more things that would need agreed on, or perhaps done differently in order to do this thing safely and get some great footage at the same time - if anyone's got any idea's on this, or criticism's for the approach I've suggested above, please post it - I'd really like to hear them.

Well, it's late and I'd better head off to bed.

Cheers.

nice vid!

So i may be a bit ignorant, but is that fin really bending over 20 degrees?

it seems to not be bending in a distributed fashion (ie, in a curve along it's entire length), but bending almost right at the fin box itself.

I must admit, i always assumed fins were stiff enough to remain mostly perpendicular to the board, and if it did flex, would do so almost imperceptibly. by that video, survey says no...

Waterboy, how about getting a scuba tank and a weight belt and sitting on the bottom in 1-1/2 to 2m of water while we sail over the top. Fins only draw 25-28 cm max so you can work out your own safety margin.
But I recon' you would need a flag to raise before you pop your head up. :)

Seriously, I wonder if the fin would be close enough for long enough to get anything of value?

Hey Waterboy,you had a go at my crazy idea so i guess I,ll have to give your one a go but i think the other problem will be the auto focus,it just won,t be fast enough. Can you lock it?? I have some small buoys that we could use as a marker to aim at. As to sitting on the bottom,use a snorkel, works as aim point too .Matt still got that "Darwin "weight jacket webbing to keep you firmly on the bottom[}:)] Kitters really are crazy

Quote waterboy:
""As for breathing, if I need to stay underwater for extended periods I was thinking of using my snorkelling gear, and attaching a length of hose with a float on the end of it to my snorkel so I can get down at least a metre underwater and still keep breathing.""""

I am not sure that this will work. There is a limit as to how long the snorkel can be before it just becomes a re-breather (and you suffocate) :(