Volvo Ocean Race - Boston In Port Races
Another late night, liquid dinner and early morning. Yes, my eyes think it's next year. Today is set aside for the in-port race which starts at about 16:15 UK time. A modified Olympic sausage designed to entertain the great and the good at each stopover. It's also streamed live to the web and captured in superb High Definition for the world's media. Yesterday I went on one of the yachts, Telefonica. I was following the engineers who ensure the continued operation of the TV systems. Each yacht is effectively a five camera Outside Broadcast unit which can be remote controlled by a shore based media team when required. Usually operated by the media crew member (a sort of embedded reporter on steroids) they capture footage during the the legs of the race and beam back HD material by Inmarsat's Fleet Broadband - well, OK, it's HDV but still pretty good. So seven mobile studios each feed any one of five cameras into two receivers which are switch between the yachts and p...