Hobie Cat Forums

Pretty sad that the only sport in the summer games not being televised is Sailing!

I watched a little online yesterday after jumping through hoops to get 2 different apps on my ipad... no announcers was actually kind of nice, but a 2 year old must be working the booth to switch cameras... it would go from a view of the bay to empty podiums for a good 20 minutes... then back to the bay.. then back to the podium. Ended up only getting to see one race and a couple of medal ceremonies.

The pictures online are great, I just wish they would do some work and make some decent video cuts of the sailing and show it! Even on time delay... give me a race to watch that isn't in the pool.

Also, how come there aren't any catamaran classes in the olympics?

_________________
1982 H16 (C:\Worthy)
Yellow/White Prism type sails

There is a cat class, its a Nacra 17.

_________________
http://youtube.com/optikid16030

1983 Hobie 16 Cat fever #55697
2008 Laser Radial/4.7 #190471
S.S.S.
S.Y.S.P

Well, there will be. In 2016. There's not a single Nacra 17 outside of Europe thus far.

The story of why there is no multihull discipline in the 2012 is long and full of sailing politics and intrigue. Much has been written on it. Many were outraged, just as the keelboats and board sailors are outraged that they will be left out of the 2016 Olympics.

But the story is not over yet.

Did NBC even mention Sailing? I watched for hours and it didn't even make the highlights. I checked the listing for the whole two weeks... Nothing!

I tried the online coverage but it was too painful to watch. Choppy video, No Production, terrible camera work, horrendous background noise.

Nice work NBC! Can't wait to see what a great job you do with the America's Cup.

_________________
Garrett

94' H16 - 100403

i cant believe boards are out because kites aren't much of a sport. and there should be at least on keel boat. But im glad there will be a high tech catamaran!

_________________
http://youtube.com/optikid16030

1983 Hobie 16 Cat fever #55697
2008 Laser Radial/4.7 #190471
S.S.S.
S.Y.S.P

I saw some sailing on the Canadian Networks. But the NBC coverage has made international news for it's poor coverage of the games, especially for their lack of live coverage, but there have been a lot of reports of other issues too.

Too bad, this has been a great Olympics to watch.

_________________

the Olympics are one of those rare opportunities to get the lay person exposed to sailboat racing, which to most is like watching grass grow. it has always been a d*mn shame that more time is not alloted to it.

at least during the Beijing Olympics the web casts were somewhat good.

they'll toss out keelboats to bring in kite boards? whoopie. the IOC needs a serious talking to.

_________________
Chris
'88 H18SE Arís

Many years ago, we were flying back to Ottawa Canada from Philadelphia, and up in business class, I recognized Ron McLean, of Hockey Night in Canada. I got up to chat with him, and he is a warm and friendly person. He told me his summer sport was running the bow on a J24 in Toronto Harbour keel boat race series, and I asked him why CBC did not televise sailing.

He was blunt and accurate - it is incredibly expensive to locate six or eight cameramen on stable boats a mile or two apart, each one with a knowledgeable commentator, and have all of this hooked up to a TV semi. In a hockey arena, most of the cabling has been pre-wired...so off-shore it is understandable why is is so costly. And how many times have races been delayed or postponed due to lack of wind or too much wind? That is not good for TV schedules.

Then, one might ask, who will sponsor an event of this nature? Some of the sailing is relatively slow, there is no drama of the nature of games such as US vs Canada women's soccer....so high costs, low viewership, low sponsorship...

I wish there were easy answers....the only answer I have is to promote the sport as much as possible....and hope that a sponsor turns up.

_________________
1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

The answer is GoPro. I admit, live coverage would be pretty cumbersome to manage. The photogs have the ability to be in goofy positions on rocking boats following along with the race, so they can get the perfect shots with great action and drama. Video is not quote so easy to capture in a good form.

However, they do have helicopters out there shooting video. So they are already expending fuel to do that.. and if they had a couple of boats with video (use the boats that are monitoring the marks)... you can't show it live, but with a little post processing... you can cut from the heli, to the mark cameras, to some on-board go-pro action and it would be amazing television. There is tons of excitement at the marks! Plenty of drama to go around... More than watching a pool filled with guys doing 30 laps. Or a boat with 8 people in it rowing for 12 minutes in a straight line.

_________________
1982 H16 (C:\Worthy)
Yellow/White Prism type sails

What you describe above, is exactly the type of coverage that I watched. But I agree with John Lunn, in his description. Ron Maclean is just about as big of a sportscaster as we have in Canada. He knows the business inside and out, and I have to agree with what he said. It makes sense.

Keep in mind that even doing the post video editing that you are suggesting is tough to do at the Olympics. The resources that the networks have are spread VERY thin as they try to cover an immense number of events. At the end, it probably comes down to ratings. There simply aren't that many people that are going to watch a sailing broadcast as other sports.

The other problem may be your country itself. There are simply SO many athletes to cover. Countries like Canada have a difficult time covering the 281 athletes that are competing for us. The USA has no more air time to play with, but they have to cover 539 athletes, not to mention keeping up to date with the major Olympic stories that are not county specific.

The other problem is the rights to the Olympic coverage. I can't get NBC coverage online in Canada. You can't get Canadian coverage online in the USA. The rights are VERY restricted, so although the sport is adequately covered, you may not be able to watch it in your specific country. That's a shame. I'm of the belief that 48 hours after an event airs, the rights should open up for others to show what happened. That would give the Live coverage to the main broadcaster, but allow smaller networks, or other sporting websites to produce feeds of past events, allowing everyone in the world to watch the sport that interests them.

It's a business, and that sort of sucks.

_________________

How about they spend minimal time cutting up these web streams?

I just watched 42 minutes of basically dead air... looking at the harbor with nothing in it... to see the start of a race.. now I have a couple of camera angles going back and forth and a race is going.. but it looks like this "stream replay" is 6 hours long.

Cut it into the actual races so people don't have to waste forever and a day watching nothing.

_________________
1982 H16 (C:\Worthy)
Yellow/White Prism type sails

So I'm 2 hours into the 6 hour replay of Medal races: Star, Finn, prelims: rsx 470 49er and they have ONBOARD live cams on the Finn boats. This is seriously decent if only I wouldn't have had to wait an hour of dead air.. and then another hour in the first race.

They have the coverage they need.. and camera angles, they just need to cut these up into usable videos! Lazy...

_________________
1982 H16 (C:\Worthy)
Yellow/White Prism type sails

If you want to see a great example of sailing coverage, check out the America's Cup World Series on YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/user/AmericasCup

The coverage of some of the early venues was rocky, but they really got it together starting in Naples. Check out the whole day replays from Naples, Venice, & Newport. There are four or five days at each location. Most are two hours each covering two fleet races and an occasional match race.

Each boat has 2 remote control cameras. One is mounted at the front of the spin pole, and the other sticking back behind the rear crossbar. They have chase boats with cameras, a helicopter, and cameras on the marker boats. They have video overlay showing the course outlines, distance up/downwind of the marks, and laylines to the marks. Really well done and exciting to watch.

-Rowdy

We should all give thanks to Steve Bethwaite, the guy who 'sold' TV on the Aussie 18 skiffs, short courses, multiple races, lots of capsizes, pitchpoles and crashes, and very high speed sailing. His model works.

Read all about it in his dad's wonderful book High Performance Sailing....a book every serious skiff or cat sailor should read...
http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Sailing-Frank-Bethwaite/dp/0070057990

_________________
1989 Hobie SX18 Sail # 1947
'Only two things are infinite, the universe, and human stupidity. But I'm not sure about the former.'

Has anyone seen the video titled ?

"Olympics Sailing 'Commentator' Says What We're All Thinking"

I think it originated on the Huffington post ...

The language is a bit rough around the edges, and maybe not totally work or kid safe (not much worse than network TV these days though) so I didn't want to post a direct link...

but seriously.. yeah.. uuhh... I'll admit to laughing.. even though... well...