Primbee Quickie

Bit of pressure then..

Am thinking about filming Thursday & or Friday if anyone's around at Primbee?

Primbee the place to be when it's westerly.

Was that pic from today Paul? Any other stills from today (esp. of me!!!) to tease us with till the video gets released?

Awesome footage Dutchman .and a great story ...

really does highlight the thrill of windsurfing ...

well done ..

Whoa!!! Looking incredible already!
So devastated that I was stuck at work

No worries fellas.... I'm heading down there now.... should be there around 2ish.

Here's the latest instalment of the Primbee Speedsailing sessions I've been filming. This was the culmination of 2 days of sailing footage with the second day almost being too strong for the Phantom 4 with winds gusting to 40 knots + most of the day. It softened to 30 -35 knots gusts late in the arvo and I was keen to get footage so launched the drone to see how it would handle the wind.

The biggest issue with flying in those winds is the wobbly camera gimbal & not being able to keep up with the sailors. For every minute I got of relatively stable footage I must have 5 of wobbly stuff that I couldn't use. I would film someone for 30 seconds and there would be 4 - 5 seconds in there of stable footage to weed out. Makes it a test of patience when filming there were heaps of times I was following someone at 40 knots getting close in on the action and then the camera has a hissy fit and I'm flying the thing a few metres away from someone flying almost blind....that's when I hit the ejector button and head for the clouds!

Filming the speed stuff is harder than wavesailing because you fly the drone at full throttle the whole time so it's hard to set up for a shot. It's like trying to drive a car with finesse with foot planted on the gas pedal the whole time. The acceleration of the sailors going downwind is too much for the drone....there were a few times I would set up behind a sailor on a broad reach and then a gust would hit, the sailor would bear off and BAM they were gone the drone just didn't have the acceleration to keep up and I'd be left behind flooring it trying to catch up but not being able to as the sailor is hitting 41 - 42 knots with drone maxing at 40. Therefore a tip for speedsailors for the future if you have a drone following you on a broad reach and you get a gust try to bear off with less aggression so drone has chance of staying with you.

There's some good shots in the video and there are some that I'm not stoked with however I was impatient and wanted to get a video out so I just edited with what I had. I came home last night at 9pm and sat at the computer till 7am because I was loving the editing process and some of the footage looked awesome on my 5K 27" computer screen. Try to watch the video in 4K, it won't let you in Safari but the other browsers I think should work.

Anyway hope you enjoy the vid,

Cheers,
Paul.

Magnificent!! Love the comic interlude when Jetlag hits me with a splash'n'dash! Thanks for not including any of the multitude of botched starts, the inevitable result of trying to get speed boards going in ankle deep water in fading breeze.

+1 one on what ^ they said. Sensational work Paul. It looks so good on the big screen! Keep em coming.