Good news. The 'Bring Back the Swansea-Cork Ferry' campaign has raised 2.5 million Euros. Bad news. 500K more is needed by Friday March 6th.
If you're a lover of Irish waves and want the quickest and best way to travel between the UK and Ireland to resume service , or you own a business dependant on tourism in Ireland or South Wales, please pledge money now and buy shares at the Bring Back the Swansea-Cork Ferry website. Thanks (Not sure if the shares entitle you to discount on crossings or Guinness in the bar yet...)
The joy-filled Scott McKercher has a new Blog at the Severne website.
You'll notice I put a new Poll about PWA Webcasts on this page. Please vote and let's see what people think.
The tour's kicked-off already but I'm addicted to the Fantasy Surfer game already.
Here's a nice little Cape Town clip from UK wavesailor Adam Lewis.
Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) are offering a limited amount of free subscriptions to eco-mag Surfer's Path to anyone signing up to join. Hurry while the offer lasts!
Jem Hall says to look-out for his new Wave technique movie ‘Winner to Wavesailor’ due out end March and that he’ll be sending me some chapters to review.
Some Jericoacora action video from RRD's new insider Blog.
Don't forget to stay up-t0-date with the Fuerteventura Wave Classic...
Hi Brian,
you can easily imagine what I voted for in the PWA live footage poll...
Even more important (and way easier!) than live coverage (that may be hard to follow because of time differences) are the heats on demand. Every event should have its own website and during the event the website main page should have two choices:
1) do you want to go to the main page with results, interviews, highlights, etc?
2) or do you want to see the heats on demand without knowing the results?
Choice 2 should take to a page that would allow to watch the heats highlights (preferibly with commentators voice) of round 1 with showing the result (I mean, showing the result only at the end of the video). Then somewhere there should be a link to the round 2 heats.
It's not that difficult.
Check this and you'll know what I mean: http://www.quiksilverpro.com.au/eng/Videos.aspx
You watch a little commercial, the ASP makes money out of it and the users can watch the heats. Everbody wins.
You know the PWA management. Please forward these ideas to them.
Thanks for your great website and for always linking my posts.
Posted by: gp | March 02, 2009 at 06:44 PM
Hi GP. Thanks for your views. I know what you mean about heat-by-heat but I quite like the PWA's videos already wth a summaries of all the action..esecially when the heats are so long. I think a wave event with just two elimiations like in CV and three videos is fine. Also, it's nice to see diferent clips from different providers like we had with caboverdeworldcup.com as they did have some critical heats/finals if you wanted specifically to see those. In fact sometimes I'd prefer if you could see alternative footage from different providers on the ASP Tour as the commentary and footage is not really always that good in my opinion. The big issue is always going to be the satellite link as until most places on-tour get adequate high speed internet we won't have any footage live or not coming any quicker. Sometimes it weas hard enough to update the live ticker in Cabo verde. In fact at little ho's I had to drive up a hill in between heats into mobile reception and send an sms to a guy in germany to update the ticker as the internet was so slow. Then watching the video crew guys tearing their hair our each evening as the connection dropped-out during their uploads was hard to watch...and they never sleep at events with all tht editing at night regardless of the connection speed. It's a lot of work behind the scenes in dry dusty places with few resources by dedicated people.
A little bird told me the ASP satellite system costs something like 18 thousnd bucks per event... ouch. But that's how you get the barrels, commentary and live streaming from the event in 'the middle of nowhere'.
By constantly talking about this we will riase awareness and move closer to that day when we crack open a tinnie or three and watch a PWA event live. Of course I'd rather watch it live with you on the Hill at Ho'okipa than online as you sit in your Directors chair and instruct your camera crew to zoom in more on the bikinis between rides!
Posted by: Beej | March 03, 2009 at 09:24 AM
The PWA Pozo event last summer was hooked up live through the Pozo webcam, but they had someone actually zooming the camera around (a bit) and following some of the action during the heats.
It wasnt superslick or high production, but personally I thought this was excellent... I sat and watched about 3 hours of the event live including Ricardo's triples and the super-sessions, watching the footage, and then refreshing the PWA ticker to find out heat results as they happened.
This worked really well, and it would be great to find something like this for more events. I don't think it detracts from the vids that are produced and that come out later... and in some ways I think it adds to the whole thing - while some is of course boring when no action.. overall I would say it actually helps people understand more about the way the events work, and gives you more of an appreciation for them.
Just my 2c
Posted by: O | March 04, 2009 at 12:05 AM
Hey O, I totally agree that a mix of coverage can only be a good thing. Personally I don't mind the sketchy aspect, but as the PWA having the word Professional in their name they are most likely to do this 'all or nothing'. I don't think they're reluctant or ignorant about it, just quality-oriented and budget restrained. Fair enough when you've sponsors to please I guess.
The good news about what you say about the Pozo webcam is that if it was watchable there with the massive long contest area, and I'm assuming you mean the cam was at one end in the 'El Viento' cafe, then it should work anywhere. I guess at Pozo you have the benefit of short heats and loads of action whereas in Cabo Verde you can wait 10 minutes for a set and there's no jumps or alternatie disciplines to switch either. Racing coverage is another ball park...cameras that far out to sea are prob exactly that...way off on the horizon...
Posted by: Beej | March 04, 2009 at 07:53 AM