"Reality" Youtube Sailing Channels

[Rockinar]

Dont forget to comment, like and subscribe!

[OldManMirage]

Originally Posted by Rockinar

Dont forget to comment, like and subscribe!

Lol, I always say "Thanks for watching. Please Like, Share and Subscribe if you enjoyed it."

[FrankC_OR]

Originally Posted by Gigaflopper

1. Do you watch any of these YouTube channels yourselves?
2. If so, do you watch them on occasion, or pretty routinely?
3. Are you a Patreon for any of them, or financial support your favorite in any way?
4. How accurately do your favorites channels reflect true live-aboard life, in your opinion?

Wow, this thread took quite the time to read through.

1. Yes. Besides the ones mentioned, I also watch Sailing Magic Carpet, Odd Life Crafting, Sailing GBU, and Sailing Tritea.

2. More or less regularly, if I don't find anything else to watch.

3. No, although I do "like or subscribe" to help the YouTube algorithm promote their content so that they can earn more ad revenue. I, myself, use a browser that blocks ads, so they don't actually earn any money from me.

4. I cannot comment out of my experience, but I can comment on reality tv in general.

The shows are not a depiction of reality but are scripted off of a sequence of real events. There are common narratives, and story-telling aids that, when coupled with production quality, produce a twenty-minute episode. When you do the math; 20min/10,080min-per-week=0.1 per cent, or a tenth of a per cent of the week. That's fine with me, but that is too small of a sample size to represent a week. I am glad that there is sailing-themed content for me to watch.

One of the biggest issues that I have noticed is the transitions that take place as the channels grow. The most obvious is the transition from a boar repair to a liveaboard travel channel. Becoming a travel channel is the primary stated goal of many of the channels. This narrative might be reversed, as with Sailing Magic Carpet, but generally, I have found this to be true.

The hidden issue is that of sailing competence. Most of the channels try to hide the learning curve of transitioning from a daysailer to a bluewater cruiser, but I have never heard of anyone gaining ocean-crossing experience instantly after buying their first boat. It takes time on the water to build the experience needed to cross the Atlantic Ocean for example. Sail Life comes to mind. He almost never sails, choosing to motor everywhere (I think he should have refitted a motorsailer), and has only completed one or two overnight passages. The excuses range from time to weather, but I have a strong feeling that he doesn't feel experienced enough to make the voyage. Odd Life Crafting was a bit more open about gaining more experience by cruising their home coast of Brazil for a year before attempting to cross to the British Virgin Isles.

Funding for the channels ranges from AdSense to sponsored content, product placement, and Patreon. Each channel is a business entity, and as such, needs different revenue streams and a competent marketing mix to remain solvent. All tv shows, movies, and documentaries are financed in some way through debt and equity, but financial operations are never as public as they are with the YouTube channels with the exception of PBS, which always lists the sponsoring partners before the aired episode. I like the transparency.

I am interested to see how this genre evolves into the second decade since its inception.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by FrankC_OR

The hidden issue is that of sailing competence. Most of the channels try to hide the learning curve of transitioning from a daysailer to a bluewater cruiser, but I have never heard of anyone gaining ocean-crossing experience instantly after buying their first boat. It takes time on the water to build the experience needed to cross the Atlantic Ocean for example.

There was a funny bit on SailingUma.

They'd spent a couple of years sailing around the Caribbean, then up the East Coast to Labrador, then across to the UK.

Then, as they were sailing across the Solent, they realized that they'd never learned to sail.

What they meant was that they'd never sailed in a crowded area with a lot of other sailboats, and had never had to worry about the sailboat-to-sailboat traffic rules.

[Tspringer]

Originally Posted by Gigaflopper

Hello! I'm a relatively new owner of a small cabin cruiser, landlocked in the Midwest on a lake. I watch a lot of these YouTube sailing channels, and I've always wondered if they accurately reflect live-aboard lifestyle for cruisers, or if it's just a skewed perception designed for us "dreamers" to take the click bait and monetize their lifestyles. Out of curiosity, I have questions for you all.

1. Do you watch any of these YouTube channels yourselves?
2. If so, do you watch them on occasion, or pretty routinely?
3. Are you a Patreon for any of them, or financial support your favorite in any way?
4. How accurately do your favorites channels reflect true live-aboard life, in your opinion? (if you have enough experience to have one! Obviously I do not )

You're a true enthusiast for their content, I have a few more questions but don't want to over complicate the discussion. Feel free to message me privately if you want to continue the conversation beyond the points above.

Thanks all.

They are ALL wildly optimistic and do not in any way show the amount of boat maintenance and repairs that are required on a daily basis.

[pete c]

Originally Posted by Rockinar

Lady K is a tool who thinks all boats should be Catalina and anything else is not worthy.

"What is the best sailboat to buy"? Catalina....

"What is the best keel type?" Anything on a Catalina...

"What is the best breed of dog?" Any dog named Catalina..

"Are Cape Dory good boats?" If you put a rudder on it from a Catalina...

I have watched most of Lady K's podcasts and never got this sense.

Does he like Catalinas?

Sure. He has made numerous mentions of his fondness for the C42. But he also likes most of the production boats as well as the more high end stuff. And he doesn't dismiss anything more than 20 years old as obsolete junk as does some channels.

Hell, he even goes out on a limb and compliments Hunter!!!!!

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by Tspringer

They are ALL wildly optimistic and do not in any way show the amount of boat maintenance and repairs that are required on a daily basis.

Sink or Swim: We *almost* ruined our sailing season before it even started.

[jalmberg]

Originally Posted by pete c

I have watched most of Lady K's podcasts and never got this sense.

Does he like Catalinas?

Sure. He has made numerous mentions of his fondness for the C42. But he also likes most of the production boats as well as the more high end stuff. And he doesn't dismiss anything more than 20 years old as obsolete junk as does some channels.

Hell, he even goes out on a limb and compliments Hunter!!!!!

Most people like what they own themselves. This is why I think it’s silly to ask questions like ‘what’s the best blue water cruising boat?’ because most people will just name their own boat!

Of course, in my case I’d be correct! 😉 (haha, that was a joke.)

[mabowers]

Originally Posted by FrankC_OR

It takes time on the water to build the experience needed to cross the Atlantic Ocean for example. Sail Life comes to mind. He almost never sails, choosing to motor everywhere (I think he should have refitted a motorsailer), and has only completed one or two overnight passages. The excuses range from time to weather, but I have a strong feeling that he doesn't feel experienced enough to make the voyage..

I do watch Mads' channel Sail Life, mostly for the attention to detail & humor he puts into all that work. It might be he was easing his new bride into the longer passages. By the way, Marinetraffic shows Athena arrived in Barbados 4 days ago. Doubt he motored from Mindelo.

[bccoast]

We have been hanging out with some YouTubers, here is the scoop.

I had hardly any exposure to boating until a couple years ago, a friend of mine set off to circumnavigate and we got interested and turned on Youtube. We never really watched YouTube before as entertainment, just to learn how to do stuff.

We got hooked on a lot of them. We became patrons of some Canadian couples, Breaking Waves, All About Spray, and Wilds and Water.

I am a professional photographer and know how much work goes into a production and wanted to support these locals chase their dreams and spend the endless hours creating content that we enjoy. I would way rather spend my money paying them than the cable company for another cheese sitcom or CSI show.

Next thing you know, we bought a sailboat, a 2013 Jeannea SO409, it was over our initial budget but watching people fixing things all the time on older boats, thought we would be smart and get something newer, so we could focus on learning to sail. Ha... still fixing just as many things, jokes on me. lol

I learned a lot from Colin at Parlay Revival and did a full victron, battleborn lithium and solar upgrade after watching his episode. I have learned so much from him and many others.

Being a Patron of these channels has also opened a dialogue with them, I regularly have conversations about boat upgrades etc and while in Mexico this winter, met up with Parlay, all about spray and breaking waves. Went surfing with them and had an amazing New years eve party on a remote beach.

A few months later, Colin from Parlay, hosted a Patron meetup at Paradise Village in Mexico and we went down. Colin arranged to go in the 3 day regatta and asked fellow YouTubers who were in the area Breaking Waves, Sailing Miss Lone Star, David Shih sails, and I Dream of Dinghy to be buddy boats or help out so all 50 of us down there could be on a boat each day of the regatta. Every night we had a big group dinner which made its way up to the sky bar after dark. On the 4th day, Colin made arrangements with a local charter company and took all of us out for full day on a 90' super yacht, fully catered and all drinks. Our only cost was whatever we wanted to tip the staff. I spent another day out on Parlay after the event. This entire thing was pretty much free, we paid our hotel, food and drinks but this was all done by them as a big thank you for our support.

I can't speak for all channels but I spent a lot of time that week with all the people from these channels, they were all 100% authentic and just like they are in their videos. Jamie from Parlay is funnier in person though. I can't even articulate how generous, genuine and fun all these people are.

All the experiences we had, it was like being in an episode. I don't think anything is staged, but of course, they are content creators and may plan the day to do fun stuff that would make good content but other than taking the production time to film stuff, they are just doing what they prob would do anyway and capturing it. Most full time try and put a 20 min vid out each week but they prob have 10-20 hours of video footage to go through and cut that down to what you think your audience wants to see.

I had some really good discussions on the business side of it, how they earn money from YouTube, the analytics, how to optimize etc. Sure some cover photos of episodes are clickbait but thats how our society responds (thanks TikTok). Look at any channel and look at the difference in views based on the cover. When you are competing against over 50 million channels to earn a living, you have to make that choice as a creator.

Regarding boat maintenance, Breaking Waves may as well be called Breaking Boats, they are constantly having to fix things, including dumb stuff like putting diesel in the water tank :P Parlay is always fixing stuff, especially with all the lightening strikes. There are lots of channels that do show the downsides.

When we bought our boat, we started filming. Why not, it's in my wheelhouse. We recently launched our first episode. It was a lot of work to do, just editing the second one now. I find we miss a lot of things because a camera wasnt on at the time of sh*t going wrong, and I have been trying to film maintenance but it takes extra time to do that and I feel like I just want to get stuff done sometimes. Do people want to see those chores? yes and no? I want to try and do more of it, I listen to the comments from our episode and that will shape how or what I include in future episodes. My wife and I still work full time, trying to learn to sail and film our experience. In 4 years, she can retire and we hope to be full time cruisers somewhere warm.

I think having the ability to capture and share our experiences as well as document it for ourselves is amazing, the fact it may have the potential to supplement our income to extend our cruising is a bonus. I think the unexpected positive outcome is that we have already been so connected to people in the sailing community, we have had so many people reach out to us and thank us for sharing and want to know more about what we are doing.

[helgam]

I really like Sailing Cerebral

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-1Jkl4rCMY

it is a bit more high energy, but they teach rookies how to sail, and that's both fun and entertaining. Always fun to watch non-boaters getting surprised by the boat-life.

[Maviarab]

Originally Posted by Letterkenny

I’ve finally given up on them. These guys (specifically Dan) drives us up the wall. Everything is “absolutely beautiful/gorgeous/magnificent“ as is their catch phrase. They just seem super fake.

Because they are, and have been since day one, exactly like the Wynn's. They are not sailors, they are YouTubers, simple as that. Everything they do, everything, from the title, thumbnail, to the content, to what is said, it is all very carefully marketed to make money. Unfortunately, all the big channels have gone the same way. Clickbait titles and chasing the cash. Good for them though I guess if people are stupid enough to pay for their dreams...

Unsustainable though as a business model/life, if things continue to get worse, some are going to crashing down in reality I think.

Originally Posted by Bowdrie

Barry, of the "Old Sea Dog" is about as close to true reality as I've found.
His episodes generally have a mix of "The good, the bad, and the ugly".
But he's never, (for me,) been boring.

This, the only channel I still watch. If it's going to go wrong, it happens to Barry. How to tidy a boat? rofl...he doesn't know the meaning of the word. I love the guy, not sure I'd ever want to be moored next his Vander but as a person, I would say about as real as they come and he does show all the bad crap (especially his old Perkins heh). Has he even had any passage yet in nice weather (like all the YouTuber sailors have lol, he barely even gets good weather at anchor.

[Letterkenny]

Originally Posted by Maviarab

Because they are, and have been since day one, exactly like the Wynn's. They are not sailors, they are YouTubers, simple as that. Everything they do, everything, from the title, thumbnail, to the content, to what is said, it is all very carefully marketed to make money. Unfortunately, all the big channels have gone the same way. Clickbait titles and chasing the cash. Good for them though I guess if people are stupid enough to pay for their dreams...

Unsustainable though as a business model/life, if things continue to get worse, some are going to crashing down in reality I think.



This, the only channel I still watch. If it's going to go wrong, it happens to Barry. How to tidy a boat? rofl...he doesn't know the meaning of the word. I love the guy, not sure I'd ever want to be moored next his Vander but as a person, I would say about as real as they come and he does show all the bad crap (especially his old Perkins heh). Has he even had any passage yet in nice weather (like all the YouTuber sailors have lol, he barely even gets good weather at anchor.

The Wynns are one of the biggest mysteries. Seems like a travel friendship than a marriage and Jason has no sailing or skippering capabilities. I do enjoy Sail Life. I skip over most of the content when they are exploring areas now but I enjoy watching a fellow Dane.

[hjohnson]

Im mildly surprised that no one has mentioned Leo Samson and the reconstruction of Tally Ho. I mostly watch it for the gorgeous woodworking porn. And also Pancho the Parrot.

[jsal]

Originally Posted by hjohnson

Im mildly surprised that no one has mentioned Leo Samson and the reconstruction of Tally Ho. I mostly watch it for the gorgeous woodworking porn. And also Pancho the Parrot.

I enjoy Magic Carpet’s stuff for that as well (minus the parrot).

The pretentious narration in their older videos was a bit of a put off, but Maya’s an artist and it’s just her nature to be artsy fartsy so I can’t really rail on them for that. Aladino does some really good work and there’s a lot of handy tips thrown in there.