How Long to Sail from LA to Puerto Vallarta?

[SS Little-Devil]

Product placement and brand integration will obviously be part of strategy as well.

[SS Little-Devil]

Originally Posted by islandplanet

I'd spend a season in Mexico first. South Pacific will still be there and you'll know the boat and any shortcomings a lot better.

I think we need to be in charge of our own schedule. I'll have Production staff on the mainland negotiating deals to feature resorts and ensure we are welcome and have the right docs to film, and we may need to stay longer, or leave earlier on some legs. Plus, we will likely be a crew of 3. But we may have special guests who will fly in and meet us for a week or two at a time. Possibly fly into one island and sail with us to another and fly out again. It's part of the promotional budget for the show.

So crewing for a couple of months was a possibility to get some more experience personally, but to do the show as planned, I need my own boat.

[Bash]

Okay, I see on your other thread that you're thinking about purchasing a Cal 35. Good choice. The waterline on that boat is 28.75', which means your theoretical hull speed will be 7.18 kts. For the downwind voyage you've proposed, figure your passage speed to be about 70% of hull speed. That would be 5.025 knots.

Now all you have to do is find a turn-key Cal 35 in your price range.

[Capt.Don]

Jon,
You also need to allow time to find, survey, purchase your boat. I spent over a year looking at every boat in S. California before settling on a boat that I'd be comfortable taking to Mexico. Even after we found the right boat (or should I say, it found us), there was a couple of visits, survey, sea-trial, documentation transfer, funds transfer, obligatory repairs on haul-out,.... All in all, it was a little less than a month before we actually took possession of our boat, and we pushed the process.

Another side point, you are going to find a lot of Catalinas, Beneteaus and Hunters in MDR! Mostly used for coastal cruising, day-sailing.

Good luck,
Don

[SS Little-Devil]

What about something like this, if I was to sail from that direction?

1981 Aloha sloop REDUCED!!!! Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

[Bash]

Originally Posted by SS Little-Devil

What about something like this, if I was to sail from that direction?

Lovely, but at that point you may wish to document the ARC rather than the PPJ.

[SS Little-Devil]

Originally Posted by Bash

Lovely, but at that point you may wish to document the ARC rather than the PPJ.

Or this:

1983 CAL Cal 35 Sail Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

I do not know much of anything about the ARC. And I'm not sure it would have as much value TV wise as a trip to NZ/OZ through the French Polynesians, or as much value for me personally. I'll look into it though.

[SunDevil]

After Australia, would you go to Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Russia, Alaska, and then BC Canada?

That would sound like an interesting trip.

I'm worried about your schedule and that it is too rushed. And you should be testing, repairing, and packing for the trip right now instead of just buying a boat (in my opinion).

Do you have a few episodes planned out? Have you tested your camera and audio gear at sea. Wind noise can be a problem.

http://www.byjanna.com
Here is a good book to read about a couple who sailed from Seattle to the South Pacific. I read it last winter, and was impressed. They get into the details about what it took to make it.

[Serena]

Hey Jon

If you haven't already thougth of it, I'd suggest rigging a soft-body brace using a soundo's rig for whoever is filming handheld. This is not as a filming platform but to hopefully stop h/h cameras from being dropped & smashed.

The camera can be attached with D-locks to the body brace via a strap across the chest so that when the shooter has to let go of the camera with both hands (which they will, it's inevitable) the camera only falls just below their chest & doesn't swing wildly. Of course, if the person falls forward they'll land on the camera so that's not ideal.

I made one yrs ago & used it filming on board many times. I don't have a photo of it & I'm sure there are better systems out there than the thing I rigged up but it was an inexpensive & very effective way of ensuring both mine & the camera's safety. A soft splash housing kept the spray off. I presume you've got soft & hard housings for gear, under water housings, w/proof Pelikans, protection against salt corrosion for batteries, stock etc?

Good luck out there
cheers,
Serena

[SS Little-Devil]

Hi Serena. I have two of those actually. They were adapted from something called Bino-Buddies, that would keep binoculars tight against the chest when crawling on hands and knees. I also have body straps for the go pros. Most of the time when the boat is moving, the waterproof 1080p cameras will be fixed to the masts and/or rigging, inside the dodger/cockpit and of course down below. Sometimes running video, sometimes timelapse, or a combination of the two. The camera gear is water resistant, and yes there is some risk that the bodies will get trashed and will have to be replaced, but such is life.

Of course I already have Pelican cases,even for the laptop. Challenge will be getting everything onto the boat - not just room on the boat, but shipping it from Canada to the boat. Sound wise we have furries and such. Boats aren't the only places that get windy. Again though, this isn't ALL about the actual sailing, but about the trip, the people, the boats, etc. The audience will depend on which genre we cut from the footage and how we edit it, but obviously some it will be made to appeal to tourists in general. In other words, some of what we film will be geared toward a broader travel enthusiast audience that might fly in to hike around or even stay in hostels, stay at a five star all inclusive resort or arrive in a cruise ship. While I'm in a location I'll cover as much as I can and decide how to edit it and who the audience will be later.

[SS Little-Devil]

SunDevil.

That depends on how well the show is doing. If it's not doing great and I've had enough by November I'll stick around OZ for a while and maybe sell the boat there. I'm not making any plans further than November just yet.

[SunDevil]

How will the lighting be below deck? Do you have enough space to frame a shot? I only ask because the pictures I see inside the boats listed aren't taken with a wide angle camera for sure.

I've watched a few TV shows/movies about this and other travel topics, and reality TV is a different style too. But, there is probably a lot of prep work that goes into getting the footage you need and want.

[SS Little-Devil]

Dude. I've been a pro photographer for over 20 years, owned an ad agency for 9 years and a cinematographer for a decent amount of time (several years). I own all of my own equipment and know how to use it. When it comes to the filming side, it's not my first rodeo. Besides that, I have a very well known cinematographer that's expressed interest in making the trip...also with his own gear, so between the two of us, believe me, we have all of that side covered.

[s/v Holiday]

Have you given much thought to how you are going to keep all this elaborate gear charged?

I have done a lot of filming underwater from my last boat and power was always a concern even with 800w of solar.

Sounds like a great adventure.

CJ

[SS Little-Devil]

I plan to have a generator, a wind generator or both, but I will have a lot of batteries on board. In addition, much of the filming will be done off the boat, while moored or on other boats and we'll be able to charge the batteries. It's not just about the sailing trip. We'll be featuring resorts, beaches, tourist attractions, parties, other yachts, beautiful women, etc. There should be plenty of ops to charge up, and I hope that my producer and production manager back home will be arranging a lot of that stuff before we arrive in new destinations.