In the midst of departing Auckland, New Zealand for the fifth leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, the anticipation builds towards the most famous–or infamous–part of this nine-month adventure…
The sailors of the most technologically advanced around the world odyssey are about to embark on a quest that will take them through the Southern Ocean, in the vicinity of Antarctica, and around Cape Horn, the southernmost headland of Chile.
This expedition certainly isn’t for the faint of heart.
Yet, for the very growth of the sport, coverage showcasing unparalleled access is paramount. It wouldn’t be practical to expect the sailors, themselves, to be the ones tasked to report and chronicle everything that’s taking place. Other brave souls would have to be enlisted for these duties.
For scope, during the 2011-12 race, Volvo Ocean Race’s records state the following highlights: 1.55 billion cumulative TV audience from 8,969 broadcasts, 41.6 million visits to their website comprised of 127 million page views and 6.27 million uniques, 8 million views of its official YouTube Channel, 6.7 million views of the race’s official livestream, 266,300 downloads combined for its iOS and Android apps, and 206,046 Facebook fans.
Back then, its objective was to broaden the race’s appeal as a preeminent global sailing event, where new audiences would be tapped into along with ensuring avid fans received their media fix through the gamut of platforms. External organizations provided an effective distribution towards depicting the core tenets of speed, heroism, and exhilaration. Fortunately enough, the teams finished the closest race since its inception in 1973–adding to the entire spectacle’s cycle.
The underlying development that’s made this kind of progress possible: an onboard reporter (OBR).
In the previous two competitions this role was known as a media crew member. It used to be that a sailor from each team would be trained by Volvo Ocean Race officials on numerous media skills, including video, photography, and interviews. Now, though, the governing body has made a concerted effort to have a dedicated, professional journalist on deck to sail with the respective crews. 2,500 applicants pitched their case for this job, with the pool being narrowed down to around 100. This group was then filed into buckets relative to skill sets, like languages, etc. Conclusively, the biggest criteria lied in the person’s ability to withstand the extreme conditions on a racing boat over a nine-month period.
“The environment onboard an ocean racing yacht is like nothing you can imagine; not only are you moving forward at about 25 miles per hour, but you are going up and down, side-to-side. That, in it by itself, is incredibly tough conditions to perform your media duties,” Jon Bramley, Volvo Ocean Race’s Director of News and TV, tells SportTechie.
Survival–in all its daring forms–presides as the consequential factor that differentiates and separates this media position versus a traditional one. Some of them have come from prior adventure journalist experiences. Others potential media members just so happened to have been serious or amateurs sailors–making prime candidates for such a reporter. Having a thick-skin, too, proves to be quite resourceful, considering that they have to deal with the same group of sailors for three weeks at a time along with cooking, cleaning, and reporting.
Each onboard reporter has a set of daily deliverables document, which provides a minimum amount of video (two minutes’ worth), photography (five to eight photos), text (200 words written), and audio that he or she has to send back each day along with social media. Everything they do confines around these responsibilities, with deadlines for transmission. Their fellow sailors and external media can place special requests to them via race control for interviews, live video calls, and other material–that doesn’t even account for the aforementioned cooking and cleanliness involved.
This video offers a glimpse of what the OBR’s day in the life is like:
The boats’ design have been crafted with an eye towards media output, too, as evident by this graphic:
From the initial construction of the Volvo Ocean 65, the media equipment has been configured to work in concert with this design. By doing so, it has enabled the Volvo Ocean Race to generate the best content in its history. Their Instagram account has grown ten-fold since the start of the game. Their daily videos as well have witnessed viewership spike, including a more compelling weekly show product by the OBRs due to the technology that’s carried. It should be noted that there’s a balance when it comes to the racing and the media-side, which stands as an ongoing effort coordinated between the two parties. Anything can be executed in light of how the boat’s equipped.
At the core of these technological amenities is the Inmarsat Satellite, though.
“For the everyday person, the best way to describe the Inmarsat Satellite is that it is like your cell phone line,” explains Bramley.
“Cobham, which makes the satellite hardware, would be like your iPhone and Inmarsat would be like your Verizon network. Inmarsat makes the communications from the boat to our race headquarters possible through its incredible network of satellites. There has to be a direct line from the domes on the back of the boats to the satellite in order to send and receive information,” Bramley continued.
Conversely, the key technologies housed inside the boat can be divided into four groups.
The first being the video cameras located all over the boat, including both fixed and handheld. A second would be the audio and microphones picking up the natural audio, recorded interviews, and the natural sound of the sailors’ voices. Another consists of the editing and directing equipment in the media station, underneath the OBR to cut edited packages, while also functioning as directors during livestreaming. Lastly, the aforementioned essential Inmarsat Satellite that enables data distribution to the outside world.
With respects to the cameras utilized, there’s an eclectic mix to allow for a variety of shots to be taken.
The Sony HXR NX70E, Nikon 1AW1, and the GoPro 4 are among what’s kept in handy. Bearing in mind that the Volvo Ocean Race is so long–in every way fathomable–they wanted to give their onboard reporters with a kit that would assist them in surprising its audience in creative ways via the viewfinder. Of course, such equipment underscores the necessity of being tough and waterproof to sustain within this environment.
Of note, several of these onboard cameras possess a crash button that’s extremely useful. Bramley mentions that these devices are constantly recording–in effect, like a security camera. In order to store all of this data, though, the camera needs to overwrite the footage as it happens. When the OBR pushes the crash button, it automatically begins saving the footage from hours prior, instead of overwriting old footage. In this manner, nothing is missed or lost. It’s rather pivotal to obtain key footage, which enables them to produce popular videos such as this epic crash:
What’s more, connecting to digital and social media outlets presents optimal vehicles to continually convey this marathon of a race.
Volvo Ocean Race’s prime targets isn’t to simply grow their audience–via invariable media outreach, alone–but to build an engaged consumer base that regularly comes back in search of its latest news.
“There’s no better way of doing this than through digital and social media,” says Bramley.
“We see our strategy in a giant funnel: at the top, we’re trying to make new, uninitiated audiences aware of the race through our own website and other digital media outlets,” Bramley added.
Their core social platforms are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to disseminate daily coverage.
Bramley elaborated on these mediums’ importance: “We now have more than 1.2 million Facebook fans, but that large number doesn’t reflect success, in itself. No, we’re focusing on engagement, exciting our audience with carefully selected, cross-media material, which they want to consume, themselves, share with their friends, and talk about. YouTube remains the number one vehicle in the world to showcase our fantastic videos; and Instagram plays a similar role with still images. More than any, Twitter offers us the opportunity to engage in a two-way communication with our fans, to spark debate and break news.”
Ultimately, the countless media initiatives that Volvo Ocean Race is performing should be looked at from a long-term, work in progress standpoint.
They have several partners–both internal and external–monitoring their media output to ensure it can be fine-tuned based on solid data. The pertinent constituents just want to see clear evidence that they’re growing this sport to a truly global stature that’s welcomed–regardless of the avenue chosen to consume it.
“Personally, when I can walk into any bar in the world and hear people talk about our race, that’ll feel pretty close,” believes Bramley.
That’s the impossible media mission taking place right now overseas that ventures to become a plausible one for the Volvo Ocean Race–in spite of a recent supercyclone that stood in its steering path.
