It depends where you point the camera

At the beginning of the season I began to use a different camera – a GoPro Hero11 Black. Not quite sure who the “Hero” was but it certainly wasn’t me.

Small Flymount bracket used on the Topper
GoPro Hero 11 Black with an Anomorphic lens
Flymount bracket on larger boats

As far as sailing is concerned I decided on two mounts for the camera produced by Chris Knapton and his team at Flymount in Southwell. These are excellent mounts which grip tight. Various crews have insisted on/suggested that we included a safety lanyard, but I have to say (even when under water) the clamps did not budge. So far 10/10. One draw back with the larger mount was that it seemed not to be designed for vertical mounting on something like a mast. Until we added a spacer it would not allow the camera to be tilted up to look horizontally along the boat– but we got there in the end, thanks to the persistence of Simon and Rachel Clayton

All seemed to be going well
But you never can tell

A hectic moment
Followed by a capsize
Everything being restored

If anyone has a different suggestion for mast mounting it would be good to hear it.

Mounting using either of the Flymount clamps horizontally on a boom produced excellent results.

My thanks to Brian Wilkins and the crew of Catspaw
Looks fairly calm here – not later

We toiled a bit with lenses for the camera. The standard GoPro lens is quite wide angled, but even a casual look at the banner of this blog will demonstrate the drawback. The horizon is curved – that means distortion. The idea was to photograph the crew from inside the boat, even when they were out on the trapeze. The standard GoPro lens not only produced whacky distortion but didn’t cover the crew hiking out.

Chris Tuckett mounting the GoPro camera with two posers
Chris NOT mounting my GoPro camera

An Anamorphic lens was purchased and this seemed better, but I think it sort of bunches people up a bit. I’m not saying that the crews who were photographed are in reality fat, but I think their body mass index is a little bit larger than the camera shows! I suspect Steve and Brian Wilkins and his crew would agree that the camera was not always kind to them. Again I am open to suggestions from those who might know about any different lenses.

Rescue boats should keep out of the way
Steve looks a bit concerned

On August Bank Holiday Monday at the Barton Regatta Toby Adlam on the spur of the moment agreed that the GoPro could be mounted on his Topper- with the camera facing forward. As you can see these turned out to be terrific images. Clearly though Toby is a very good sailor and not at the back of the fleet, because only rarely were other boats in front of him!

Pre race discussion!
At the start

It may well be that a Topper is going to prove to be the ideal boat for a downward facing camera. I believe the sail and the boom move independently of the mast and a downward facing camera might produce, in a fair wind, some interesting photographs. Because of the size of the boat and the ease with which it can be tipped to one side, mounting a camera at the top of the mast should not be as difficult as it would be to mount the one at the top of a White Boat mast.

Purist photographers will no doubt complain that horizons are all over the place. So what do you do when the boat tips? What is even worse is when the GoPro makes the decision for you. How do you get round that?

Lots of ideas for the future. I would be delighted to hear any suggestions or angles I hadn’t thought of from sailors, GoPro users or my normal fan club who might have ideas in addition to the notion that I ought to be locked up for bad sense of humour.

Have a good weekend.

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