Edinburgh filmmaker sends news from the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge

The Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge started at the beginning of last week. It was delayed by a day due to bad weather, although some crews are now almost a quarter of the way across the Atlantic.

Edinburgh film producer and director, Gavin Turnbull, who is on board the support yacht, the 67 ft Aurora, was back at the start line in La Gomera yesterday when The Reporter talked to him on Skype.  Aurora had to come back to have the track for her mainsail repaired, although, according to Gavin’s Facebook update this morning, the boat is now heading out to sea again. This time, as they are well behind the 17 rowing boats, they may even manage to get the Aurora to show what she can do. They are hoping to get up to 15 knots out of her as they chase after the much smaller rowing boats.

Gavin also hopes for better weather:-“The weather in the Canaries is very much affected by the Sahara, but it should be more settled as we travel further south. A couple of nights on watch I have had to wear full wet weather gear so I am looking forward to wearing shorts soon!” He also explained:-“We have only been about 150 miles away from La Gomera so far. We still felt connected to land, so we have not had the proper Atlantic experience yet. I still feel a bit like Shackleton who was stuck on the ice for three years…!”

But the other part of what Gavin is doing out there, apart from enjoying sailing which is one of his passions,  is gathering footage for broadcast on the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge website, showing the highs and lows of this year’s race. Part of this he is filming himself, editing on board the yacht and then putting up on Vimeo, but the other footage will be collected by the rowers themselves who have all been equipped with GoPro cameras fixed onto their crafts. Gavin then has to collect the cards out of their cameras as he finds each boat, and then it’s back down below to upload the footage to his computer and edit it. He continued:-“I have still not made the most of the footage. I haven’t got the stuff I really want as yet, for example some of the diaries from the crews. I have been lucky though and have not been seasick, even though I am down below for an hour or so at a time editing.”

Some of the footage will be made into a documentary of the race, billed as the world’s toughest rowing race. Here is a wee snippet for you, demonstrating how difficult it is to track down the rowing boats, one of which, Team Tom, already had to be rescued yesterday by a cruise liner after their boat capsized and they took to the liferaft for ten hours:-

[vimeo 33671157 w=400 h=225]

FINDING BOATS from Talisker Whisky on Vimeo.

We hope to bring you another report from our man in the Atlantic soon!