Katie's big plan

Today I headed down to Saxon Wharf to meet Katie Miller. Last year she sailed around Britain in a corribee 21 just like Ellen MacArthur did over 10 years ago. In fact Katie raised money for the Ellen MacArthur Trust and this January was awarded the Raymarine Young Sailor of the Year Award.

I'd heard a lot about Katie and maybe imagined a hard, determined & heavily focused young lady, but of course I was very pleasantly surprised. It sounds a cliche, but she was enthusiastic, friendly and very humble.

Katie was working with Bob Sims from Raymarine, fitting the man overboard tag system for her next venture, the Round The Island Race which she is doing with Dan Monk, a member of the Ellen MacArthur trust in remission form cancer. I wanted to go down and meet katie as we'll be following her in the race. I've never done the race myself and maybe on the day I'll be feeling a bit jealous, however, I think it's great to be able to meet younger sailors like Katie with a growing profile who still has a pasion for cruising.

After getting soaked on Monday filming a pilotage piece, today I was squeezed in a boiling hot 21 foot boat with at least 2 other people. Not complaining just cooling down now.

I had a great chat with Katie which you'll be able to see next month. And we'll be seeing how she and Dan get on in the race.

Poole in the rain

What a day today, first of all an early drive to London to collect the radio mic (microphone) to use for the day's filming and then down to Poole to meet Tom (Cunliffe) to shoot next month's pilotage piece.

I managed to organise a boat for the day, it was a Golden Hind 31 owned by Keith and Angela who agreed to give up a day and allow Tom and I to take over their boat. they couldn't have been more perfect hosts.

As Tom was walking down the pontoon to meet us he was troubled by the spreaders on the boat, the Port side being a bit droopy. After having just introduced himself to the owners he had me rigged up and ready to go up the mast to level the spreaders up. I'd established by this time that Keith was an ex-fireman which made me feel much more confident. No messing and there I was dangling in Keith's harness..."up a bit, a bit more, little bit more, just a fraction more..." finally Tom was satisfied, I was let down and we could say hello to Dan the RIB man who'd just arrived and must have wondered what was going on.

After the first of many lovely cups of coffee from Angela we headed out into the rain and Poole harbour. If there's one thing that makes filming tricky it's working on boats but once you add in some rain it's a nightmare. Unfortunately we couldn't rotate Brown Sea Island to avoid the rain and so when you see the item editied I'm afraid there's a lot of rain on the lens, which is very frustrating for me as I want the shots to be clear, interesting and informative. One of the things I really work hard is for Yachting TV to look good and have top editorial content.

having never sailed around the back of Brown Sea Island before, I wasn't sure what Tom had in mind when he suggested this piece of pilotage but it was great to see the contrast of a busy harbour on one side and a tranquil anchorage on the other.

Dan's driving was spot on and after a few transfers we sat and had some lunch and listened to Keith and Angela's plans for the future. They've just bought a Solaris 42 and are going to live aboard in Greece, fabulous. The Golden Hind we were on is for sale so take a look at the pictures and if you fancy it, the boat can be viewed at boatshed.com.

The rain teased us just after lunch, stopping for a while and the really coming down. So hats off to Tom, Dan, keith and Angela for braving the elements, let's hope in the edit we can actually see where we are through the rain!

My first post

Hi
My name is Steve as you can probably tell by the title of this blog. I suppose I should explain what the purpose of my blog is, my mission statment I suppose.

Over the coming months (years?) I'll be sharing what it's like to run and grow a website for sailors...yachting tv.

My background is in TV Production and I'm a passionate sailor so what better plan than to launch a website bringing the 2 together....so there you ahve it, my big plan.

Nobody said it was going to be easy, and it's not but most of all it really is worth trying and after only four epsiodes the feedback we've had has been amazing.

So standby for (hopefully) an interesting and truthfull account of what we're up to. Please feel free to add your comments/advice/thoughts.

cheers

Steve