Sailing Was Made for HD TV. Ericsson Shows Us Why.

People thought that the Volvo Ocean Race were crazy embedding camera men on boats with HD cameras. Here is the result. I don’t care what brand you are – this is an incredible platform. Enjoy.

Sailing in High Definition. A Sport made for TV

Knut Frostad, CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race gave an inspiring presentation to the World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco in December. Part of the wow factor of his speech was the footage, in particular the high definition sequences of spray coming over the bow of the boat with every single drop captured in crystal detail.

The full Volvo Ocean Race experience is being delivered by some ground-breaking endeavours by the boffins at Inmarsat, the global satellite communications company and a key partner of the race. This article comes from the Volvo Ocean Race Site.

Until the 1980s when satellite equipment was first hoisted into the stratosphere, the polling of race boats was a haphazard affair and navigators spent weeks or months submerged under piles of paper charts and pilotage books, making the odd ship to shore call over VHF if in range.

Messages to supporters and loved ones were handed over mid ocean to passing cargo ships until the development of radiotelephone and radiotelegraphy services via maritime radio station Portishead Radio opened up new opportunities.

Almost overnight, these created an audience for the early yacht races which, courtesy of some remarkable technological wizardry over the past three decades, has been expanded, educated and kept thoroughly entertained.

Boats are now polled every 15 minutes which has led to a similar tenfold increase in safety levels and navigators can download massive 8mb weather files in the blink of an eye, all of which allows race watchers the opportunity to stay in touch with the fleet and its movements round the clock.

The media crew between them will send back 90gb of footage during this race, using custom built high definition cameras. They can do live interviews, send as many images, podcasts, emails and blogs as they like all using the powerful Inmarsat systems with material used across the world, on television and radio stations, in newspapers and magazines and on websites.

Crews can call home for updates on their football teams – not that they do – and skippers can get their shore managers out of bed at all times of day and night for consultations over equipment failures or to organise stopover repair programmes.

The quick and easy exchange of images has also improved medical support since pictures of wounds or breakages can be wired back to doctors for diagnosis and treatment. In leg one from Alicante to Cape Town for instance, Tony Mutter was lifted off Ericsson 4 after doctors became concerned by the pictures of his infected knee. It could easily be a life-saver.

All these communications are sent via Thrane & Thrane satellite antenna to Inmarsat’s network of 10 satellites in geostationary orbit 35,786km above the Earth, all of them controlled from company HQ in London via ground stations located around the globe. The third link in the chain is Stratos, which provides the mobile satellite services via FleetBroadband, Fleet 33 and Inmarsat-C for video, audio, and text-based reports.

As to what comes next is anyone’s guess but as we have seen in this race, such sophisticated technology lends itself to a wide variety of projects including some vital environmental research which in 2008-09 is being conducted on behalf of Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics into the transport of micro organisms from one ocean to another.

In February, Inmarsat will be moving some of their satellites around to enhance their global network coverage is 100 per cent.

These activities will impact on users of broadband and satellite phone users in a narrow geographical band in Asia Pacific, including the Volvo Ocean Race fleet who will be given back up options for connectivity for a ten day period while the Inmarsat 4 satellite is repositioned. But that’s a story for another day.

Volvo Ocean Race a ‘Breath of Fresh Air’.

The first session of the World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco last week was a rather sombre session. Many walked out thinking that given the relationship between ISAF and the IOC, the sport was at the mercy of committees and politics. But a reduction in medals, ‘old fashioned’, televisually unexciting classes, and a dependence on Olympic money is only part of the sport of yacht racing and the second session featured the charismatic, commercially driven, technology embracing, future looking boss of the Volvo Ocean Race; Knut Frostad.

Frostad’s presentation was slick. It evangelised the use of new media, and the exploration of new markets. The well chosen images of India meeting the state of the art Volvo 70 yachts were captivating. The slow motion, high definition on board footage was thrilling: sailing said Frostad, was a sport made for High Definition.  

Despite the relatively small number of boats in the Volvo fleet, due in part to the financial commitment involved. The Volvo Ocean Race is determined to make it work, not just for sponsors, but for the media and the cities the race visits. The new world is taking note too. 10,000 people greeted the last boat into Cochin, India. But new media is also key to the success of the race and last week a partnership with google earth was announced. 

With the teams carrying an embedded media crew member for the first time in the 35 year history of the race, more content is being shot, recorded and written than ever before. Using Google Earth, followers can see, hear and read what the embedded media crew members and their team mates are experiencing as it’s posted in Google Earth. It’s another way to get the content from the race out to the public using the latest technology tools while at the same time adding another layer of context to the raw content.

“This is yet another tool, another option for fans of the race,” says Andrew Ferguson, the Head of Technology and New Media for the Volvo Ocean Race. “In this case, we’re using the power of Google Earth to provide an accurate representation of each leg through the media the sailors are providing.”

To follow the Volvo Ocean Race on Google Earth, fans need to visit the Volvo Ocean Race website www.volvooceanrace.org/Multimedia/google, where they can download the Google Earth data file, (the ‘KML’ file), and find help and instructions in order to get started.

The Google Earth application joins the official websites and the mobile portal m.volvooceanrace.org as options for race fans to follow their favourite sailors in the Volvo Ocean Race.

The fleet left India today for Singapore with Puma leading the way.