A couple of contrasting sailing videos

[Fr J Hackett]

Why not call a cease fire. Two films and highlighting the differences.
Surely we would rather talk about how Erik pushes the boundaries somewhat. Something we should all do a little more. Personally he has inspired me somewhat which has helped my sailing, a bit!!.

He does not come over cocky and shows his weakneses. Clearly it’s commercial but very seldom cap in hand. His early films were fabulous to watch.
I’ve got his T shirt, still look a nerd though.
Steveeasy

From what I've seen of him Erik is a risk taker and he sails, sets objectives to challenge himself, I am not sure about his sense of self preservation and risk as he never wears a harness and tether even when going to the foredeck at night in boisterous seas. Ylop makes the point that he does that to maximise the viewing figures that I doubt very much, the videos are a lucrative byproduct of his sailing which he would do if You Tube didn't exist. He is obviously commercially aware as he has sponsors but I repeat all I am interested in is comparing two different attitudes to essentially similar sailing.

 

[ylop]

Try again opening post "Two competent helms"

That’s not a discussion about sailing technique it’s a vague observation about the content of the videos. It’s the same sort of observation as “you do realise these are monetised videos”.

I have no concerns about Erik but you seem to think his motivation for sailing is so that he can make money out of You Tube videos, that's quite an assumption.

You seem to think he’ll sail off one day and not make it back. Is that not a concern?

I doubt his motivation for sailing is to make money from YouTube. I was suggesting his motivation for posting the videos was to make money and that therefore he will post videos that play to the audience (as any sensible business person would). It’s difficult not to be influenced by that when you make the next content even if only sub-consciously. It actually the same factors that make bikini-clad sailors in the caribbean make more bikini-clad content even if they would rather be talking about the finer points of anchoring.

It's not that I think I don't watch monitored videos I do and I know I do but not often and not many and have admitted as much,

My point was you seem to watch a lot of Eric’s content, it’s monetized. Your opening post seemed to be suggesting otherwise. I was simply pointing out the contradiction.

and whilst You Tube videos can make money directly it's the Patrons that produce the biggest amount ( I think but no doubt you can correct me on that)

Small channels with a committed band of patreons can definitely make more on patreon at least in the short-medium term. Potentially bigger or easier money in the sponsorship stuff. Patreon looks like it’s “free” money but most channels have it set up that you pay for each video they produce so you need to keep making content to make money. Being a patreon seems a lot to me like it’s being in an exclusive fan club so to make money you have to treat that community special with extra updates and videos etc - it needs work. (I’ve never been a Patreon - closest I’ve got was using Koffee (sp?) to say thanks to someone for an instructional video that saved me ££ and time on repairs). But as soon as you stop the effort the income dries up. YouTube will continue to pay you for all the views of your back catalogue. If you make the right content you might make more from Youtube in the long run. Knowing what people make from youtube and patreon is virtually impossible to gauge accurately, you can come up with "at least" quite easily - most people have multiple tiers of patreon and many publish their total number of patreons so that is simple arithmetic, but it could be much more if they are mostly top tier supporters. Youtube is much more opaque. Even creators don't know what they will make "per view" on a particular video. Essentially advertisers "bid" on showing ads on your content and all sorts of metrics affect what an advertiser will pay - in simple terms content that appeals to cash-rich people likely to make a purchase from an ad will make far more than something whose main audience is not a typical spender (or "worse" has ad blocking software!). But from those who do share how much they earn $3 per 1000 watches seems to be typical for a well-established channel unless its got a very attractive audience profile. Then theres the YT subscribers who don't see ads, but you get a share of their membership.

Apparently, Erik currently has 421 patreons each paying at least £2+vat per video which will give Erik about £700 per video after taking off the Patreon fees (but it could be much more if most are not just the basic supporters). His videos vary widely in how many views they get - from under 100K to over 1M. But lets take his latest video (only a week old - it has 100K views so far and so has probably earned him roughly $300 so far - but it will continue to trickle income in indefinitely). His top 5 videos have 7.7M views between them = $23K, far more than those videos will have earned directly from Patreon.

The other couple (Sailing Sweet Ruca) seem to be at a different scale - top 5 videos "only" got 1.2M views total and so perhaps $3.6K, but their latest one is one of the biggest and has about the same number of views as Erik's latest. Their Patreon is priced per month not per video, and they don't show how many people are signed up (which I suspect means its pretty low) my guess is they are making more on Youtube than Patreon.

It's still about the sailing though as everyone else understands.

And yet 3 pages in and there's been no actual discussion of the sailing technique only that one takes bigger risks and the other has a more expensive boat. So stop arguing with me on whether you watch monetised videos and discuss the sailing technique...

...but then whilst the sailing techniques may be contrasting, so too are the channels which captured them and presented them to you. I don't think you can completely ignore that. Both will have edited and refined the story they want to tell and the way they want to tell it. Erik's story is one of "no bullshit, just sailing" and "epic viking adventurer taking on the high seas alone" whilst Sweet Ruca are "racing sailors cruising round the world" who attribute some of their inspiration to "Delos, Vagabonds, etc [the channels you hate!]". Two people on the same boat could film edit and produce the same trip to look totally different, with dramatisaion to appeal to their specific audience. One will show the disasters and the risky bits because that's what gets the clicks the other will not want to show their screw up and might not have been set up for filming at that moment. Of course, different skippers will push boats to different limits as well.