Boat movies/Quadcopter-ing, summer 2015

[henryf]

What can I say? Some sort of pikey encampment with kids running around. I was just waiting for JFM to emerge from behind a Transit van pulling his trousers up

I can see the appeal. You lot must have had an absolute blast.

Some great videos. I won't lie we're going to struggle to compete in Gosport, might have to put it out to the east of England contingent

Thanks for sharing, gives us all something to aspire to...

Henry

 

[DTIM]

JFM,
The video clips are stunning. They even made SWMBO sit up and take notice and agree that she could live that sort of life!
I'm sure I have said before but the SOF/med tourist association ought to be paying you. How there are any boaters left in the UK after the 'summer' we have had coupled to watching these clips and listening to your compelling arguments to move in this and other threads is beyond me! It is something I certainly aspire to, but I'm afraid it will be a few years away yet!!
Thanks for sharing,
Dave

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

LOL, can't wait!
Though luckily, in the meantime, we had another couple of invitations for dinner from local friends in the next days, that swmbo just couldn't decline.
It looks like I'll manage to survive till your arrival, phew...!

You tell your SWMBO that we here in the UK are told by our health nazis that a Mediterranean diet is good for you so keep tucking into that pasta and foccacio

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Easy mike. Yes 28kg, so it is like a heavy suitcase but has big handles so you just lift it around, and lift out of water. I haven't got a nice storage place so it untidily lives under my flybr aft staircase, and I often take it home in the car (my car is parked at boat transom remember) to run it in the pool to flush it and store it in garage. You honestly couldn't easily lift it to flybr or down into a crew cabin, so storage IS an issue, I gotta say

Actually I have a storage lazarette under my bathing platform and I was thinking I could lift it with the pasarelle and just plonk it in there

fun it provided this summer to a heck of a lot of people (and children in the 6-12 years zone) it was great value

I was thinking what fun it might provide for 59-60yr old kids

 

[BartW]

I'm glad I can keep Rihanna because that's the actual track we were playing with the sound-to-light underwater lights. ...

what kind of audio to DMX interface / lightcontroller do you use ?
makes me think back at my first ever self build electronics project when I was 15yo
it was a Light controller with audio input, no DMX yet at that time

after having again this season, several evenings, guests dancing in the cockpit,
we decided to permanently install a mirror ball and color spotlights during next winter upgrades

 

[rafiki_]

I

 

[scubaman]

Aquapalooza done right

The video really says it all. Simply stunning.

I had a look at the other videos by the same poster. In the Mandolin wind I was well impressed by the drone's ability to go against the wind to meet the sail boat (which was making decent progress, so there must have been a fair wind). Assuming it was shot using the phantom 3, it appears to be pro stuff.

Looking forward hearing how you've gotten along with it, J.

 

[henryf]

Separately, I doubt many on here will know what it means without googling, but your kids might say wow if you tell that we had vloggers Joe Sugg ("ThatcherJoe", and Zoella's brother) and Caspar Lee ("Caspar") on the boat on Saturday. They were delightful guests

I mentioned to Emily (xMissLondonx) that you'd had some people off Youtube on the boat. She instantly said it would be Zoe Sugg and Alfie Deyes, or it could be Joe Sugg & Caspar Lee. Never mind a lovely boat in the SoF, quadcopters, water toys and the like THIS has taken you to the top league. "OMG I could have crewed with my powerboat level 2" "They are like royalty in the teen world".

You have truly outshone us this season

Henry

 

[jfm]

Yup joe sugg and Caspar lee are my nbf. I realise they are the most famous guys on the planet among Emily's age range. Nice guys in real life and Caspar is a pretty good water skier. They left their swim shorts- shall I send them to Emily? As they downed/sprayed a magnum of my champagne I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Oh and joe left his armbands behind too!

 

[henryf]

Hah hah. We had a family afternoon tea together just down the road from home and were chatting about all things Youtube, facebook etc. using your guests as a catalyst.

I was telling Ems that she should start putting something together properly. She's very good when she makes up her vids, most got deleted by her because she said they weren't good enough but I think she was being a bit harsh. She leads an interesting life what with the boat, her after school stuff and the old man dragging her off on cruises and trips to Thailand.

I shall ask her about the shorts & water wings. I'm thinking they need their own vlog as they travel round the world trying to hook up with their owner.......

Isn't it funny how sometimes being a big fish in a small sea works out for you when that sea turns out to be the Internet Ocean.


Henry

 

[alt]

jfm - Thanks for sharing. I watch the video's with envy. Showed them to the GF and her jaw dropped. Each video we watch makes us want to make the move more and more (I suspect subliminal clips in those vid's anyway!) but logistically given that we operate the boat commercially and it's only 40 mins away from us really would make us have to think hard.

I think the way forward for us is to spend a week renting a place in a popular area next season and charter a day-boat for a couple of days.... then sit down with a calculator

Thanks again, who knows, in a few years we might be cruising in company!

(TBH I was convinced after spending a week on BartW as part of the forum cruise the year before last!)

 

[jfm]

On Saturday I got the dji phantom 3 flying. I gotta say, I'm very pleased with it. It is remarkably easy to fly. The first flight I did was just a 5 minute test in a car park, and then the youtube below is literally my second flight. I recommend it strongly for anyone thinking about a drone. It is far better and easier than the phantom 1, which lasted about 5 minutes in my hands.

I pinched the first 3 clips in the movie below from the pro material I got last weekend, but the rest is my flying. And it is being flown manually (well, with auto hover) - I didnt have time/inclination yet to figure out how the "follow me" and "auto rotate in a circle around the boat" functions work.

The location is St Jean Cap Ferrat, in the bay right outside where Mcanderson keeps his boat. It's in 720 HD so you can watch it in full screen if you have the bandwidth

 

[mcanderson]

JFM if only I had know you were so close. We arrived on the 5th, but only went as far as the bay off the Hotel Royal Riviera for a dip. The wind picked up quickly and we ran back to BSM with it gusting 25kts. Down for two weeks. I was thinking about starting a 'Who is going to Cannes' thread.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

On Saturday I got the dji phantom 3 flying. I gotta say, I'm very pleased with it. It is remarkably easy to fly. The first flight I did was just a 5 minute test in a car park, and then the youtube below is literally my second flight. I recommend it strongly for anyone thinking about a drone. It is far better and easier than the phantom 1, which lasted about 5 minutes in my hands.

I pinched the first 3 clips in the movie below from the pro material I got last weekend, but the rest is my flying. And it is being flown manually (well, with auto hover) - I didnt have time/inclination yet to figure out how the "follow me" and "auto rotate in a circle around the boat" functions work.

The location is St Jean Cap Ferrat, in the bay right outside where Mcanderson keeps his boat. It's in 720 HD so you can watch it in full screen if you have the bandwidth

Impressive hard-top launch at 1'25, but that entry did look a bit painful!

And excellent quality footage from the P3, thanks for posting.

 

[jfm]

JFM if only I had know you were so close. We arrived on the 5th, but only went as far as the bay off the Hotel Royal Riviera for a dip. The wind picked up quickly and we ran back to BSM with it gusting 25kts. Down for two weeks. I was thinking about starting a 'Who is going to Cannes' thread.

I thought you might be there but there were so many boats there is was hard to pick out what might have been your boat. If you see us next time come over. Saturday was beautiful until about late afternoon, as the video shows. Then the wind picked up from the east, perhaps around 4pm ish (I don't remember exactly) so we just went round to Villefrnache and had perfectly flat water. We had dinner ashore, then a nighttime swim in the Lumishores, and left villefranche around 2am. Sunday was fantastic. Great weekend.

 

[scubaman]

That's really impressive. Very steady and smooth shots. Well edited too, btw.

I had a long look at their website last night and noticed the functions you mentioned. Both pretty handy features in the boating context.

Was getting it back to the boat easy?

 

[benjenbav]

Great to see the floating sofa doing the business!

 

[jfm]

That's really impressive. Very steady and smooth shots. Well edited too, btw.

I had a long look at their website last night and noticed the functions you mentioned. Both pretty handy features in the boating context.

Was getting it back to the boat easy?

Hi K. Anything good about the shots is DJI not me. You watch the thing in FPV on iPad as you fly, @720 HD. If you hold the copter in your hand and wobble it around, and look at your ipad, the picture is absolutely still - the gimballing and speed of reaction is quite astonishingly good for an £800 gizmo (includes camera, SD card,...).

The camera tilt control is a bit sensitive/jerky, but I'll look for a setting to tweak that. I edited out the too-fast tilts.

Getting back to boat is easy. I tested the "return to home" on land and it landed 3m away from where it took off, so that is no use on a boat. I therefore just flew the thing manually to the boat, and let it hover above the swim platform, and grabbed it. If you can see the boat in the iPad, you just press the forward stick and it flies to the boat. Then press the stick to lower it to say 2m above deck. Refine position, then grab it.

When you let go of the sticks it just hovers perfectly still, including in moderate wind. This gives you time to think during early flights (I've only flown it once, shooting the above video, apart from a 5 minute test on land). It has 2 downward pointing cameras and it uses image processing to hold its position. GPS holds its position in a "coarse" way, but the image processing holds it perfectly. It hovers like it is attached to a pole. The book says this is no use on water because the waves move, but I got the impression it could see all the other anchored boats and hovered perfectly steady by seeing them

I used beginner mode which imposes max 30 metres from handset sideways and upwards, just to play safe!

I strongly recommend it. Apart from a 2 hour faff setting it up (I downloaded new firmware for copter, handset and batteries) it is a complete piece of cake for a clumsy first timer like me

Editing is iMovie on a high spec MacBook Pro, doine on the flight back to UK last night. As you may know iMovie is glitchy so I might buy final cut pro or something and start editing in that. No big deal though - iMovie gets you started. Anyone have any recommendations on editing software btw? I'd like something that feels similar to iMovie because I can't be bothered learning a whole new user interface

Much better than my last quadcopter, an early phantom 1, as you might remember...

 

[scubaman]

Yes, I remember it vividly. In fact that is the second thing that always comes into my mind right after getting the urge to buy one .

I just watched a youtube vid of the thing where they covered the gps sensors with tin foil to test the hold-me-still cameras. I though that waves would really confuse it, but if i understood correctly, in normal circumstances it uses both gps and the cameras. The camera-only is back up if gps signal is lost.

I feel tempted, although weather wise it's a bit late for this season.

Regarding the editors; on Mac i've only used imovie and on few occasions the Gopro Studio which does the basic stuff surprisingly well for a freebie. For more advanced stuff the Final Cut Pro is probably the way to go.

 

[rafiki_]

Nice job JFM, impressive flying and filming. Looks like all your guests were having a great time too.