THE SOCIAL SET
In January 2014 a 24-year-old Breton, Guirec Soudée, set off on a small steel yacht on a circumnavigation. In the Canary Islands he adopted a red hen, Monique, and so began one of sailing’s unlikeliest partnerships. For five years the pair explored the world, including overwintering in Greenland and navigating the North West Passage.
In an ironic turn of events, Soudée set off on his adventure with no radio, wanting to be entirely cut off from the world to reconnect with nature. However, he shared his adventures with a friend who posted his updates online. The pair’s adventures captured the pubic imagination, and a social media phenomenon was born. Now back in France, Monique is the star of a book and a film, and the pair have a full schedule of high profile media engagements.
“The most significant change has been the impact of social media on cruising sailing,” comments Jeremy Wyatt of World Cruising Club. “For better or worse, we live in the age of the Youtube sailor. Today’s aspiring cruiser is much more likely to search ‘how to’ on Youtube than to reach for a copy of Nigel Calder’s handbook.”
Previously cruisers may have kept a blog, probably with a few images clunkily posted. Facebook, which expanded from being solely for American students in 2006 to 30 million users by the middle of 2007, gave cruisers an alternative platform to share news and photos.
When the first Gopro camera was launched in 2011, it was quickly adopted by the extreme sports community and the rugged, waterproof cameras also allowed cruisers to take footage underway or underwater.
The ensuing leaps in camera technology were rapid, and between smartphones, digital SLRS and Gopro-style cameras it is now possible to capture every moment of a spectacular sail or destination.
The other hugely significant development has been the advent of drones. Back in 2012, Matt Sheahan pondered whether ‘quadcopters’ might
become popular with sailors. Nowadays drones are near-ubiquitous among bluewater sailors. There are also trials taking place to discover how they might be used for search and rescue applications in future.
With such 3600 footage possible, the best sailing bloggers are now full-time vloggers, producing professionally shot and edited mini-travelogues, hosted on their own Youtube channel and generating substantial income streams.
One of the pioneers of the sail vlog genre was former software analyst Brady Trautman. Trautman set off on his Amel ketch Delos in 2010 and has produced over 200 videos since, for over 350,0000 subscribers. Will Bruton reported for us:
‘Thanks for the inspiration!’ A note on a crate of beer reads. It’s been left in the companionway of SV Delos which has just arrived in Lanzarote. It is one of many tokens of appreciation the Youtubers have stumbled across when coming back on board. Others come in the form of cash donations from viewers, many of whom click the ‘Buy us a beer’ button on their website, or via regular Patreon subscriptions.
‘SV Delos has proven a magnet for viewers that have never even stepped aboard a yacht. Some are inspired to action. “The really amazing stories are the ones where someone in an anchorage comes over and explains how they bought their first boat after watching our videos, some are sailing full-time. If we can do that, we’re probably doing something right,” says Trautman.
‘For those already on the water, the value lies in the wisdom that can be drawn from a crew who have been sailing full time for almost a decade.
As well as destination insights into less well-known cruising grounds (last year’s videos on St Helena were particularly popular) the crew experiment with new technology on board, running long-term real world tests (watch out for more on this in a future issue of Yachting World).’