Tag Archive for: marine filming

Rustler 37 in the Helford River

A favourite client…

One of my favourite clients is Rustler Yachts. Filming boats for them is a guarantee of a great day at sea.

Rustler 37
Rustler 37 at anchor, Carrick Roads

Rustler have a reputation for handbuilding high quality yachts. Based in Penryn, Cornwall, just a few miles from our studio, it’s always a pleasure to work with them.

Rustler’s workshop alongside the River Fal is crammed with skilled craftsmen of every type. It’s companies like this that keep the art of boat building alive. No GRP production lines here as you find in the huge French yacht manufacturers. Here at Rustler they give every detail minute and skilled attention. That’s the joy of owning a Rustler yacht.

Filming at sea

Well, so far our films have focused on individual boats. We wait for perfect conditions at sea off Falmouth and spend a day at sea filming by drone and boat-to-boat as one of their skippers puts a yacht through its paces. Here’s a clip of their Rustler 42 that we made for them.

A film brief with a difference

But the latest project – although still fun  and still filming boats – was very different. In the Penryn boatshed Rustler are building their biggest yacht to date – the Rustler 57. So we came up with the idea that we would film that critical moment when they laid the deck on the hull and attached it.

And of course there is a great deal of work done before that happens. But it’s still a great moment to capture. So with the help of some of the craftsmen, Fionn and I set up 3 Go-Pro cameras each filming different angles of the process.

It’s not dramatic – in fact it’s a precision process that the craftsmen have carried out many times on other boats. They have raised and lowered this deck countless times already to ensure that when the final time comes the fit is perfect. But in time-lapse it’s still great watching that moment when the deck is finally lowered and then fixed in place.

Here it is!

Pilot Whales Cornwall

Pilot Whales – a surprise encounter

On a flat calm day this summer we encountered something very unexpected and amazing. Just ten miles south of Salcombe we encountered a pod of Pilot Whales.

Here’s a little edit. Take a look!

 

A perfect day…

The conditions were absolutely perfect. Glassy sea and no other boats in sight, just us. It was surreal.

 It was a huge pod. Wherever we looked there were fins and whales breaking surface. It’s hard to know why they were here. Their principal diet is squid, although they also eat cuttlefish, herring and other small fish when squid is unavailable. Maybe they had chanced on a shoal of herring, which are becoming increasingly common again off our south west coast.

 

 It was so unexpected, we weren’t ready for it, didn’t have filming equipment set up or anything. However the whales didn’t seem in a hurry to leave us. We got the equipment set up in record time, filming from the boat and the air with the Inspire drone. You can’t miss an opportunity like this.

pilot whales fins

We spent about half an hour with them, trying to make the most of the moment and since we were not in a rush to get back anyway. The whales also had their young with them. Overall, It was a magical encounter which we would be incredibly lucky to ever experience again!

a pod of pilot whales

And then another surprise encounter…

After finally leaving the whales and continuing on towards Falmouth, something caught my eye disturbing the flat calm sea. Surely it couldn’t be…? Throttling back on Cecienne we were just in time to watch a huge leatherback turtle slowly submerging. You can occasionally see leatherbacks in the Irish Sea in the summer, feeding on jellyfish that swarm there each year. The water around us was full of jellyfish, so obviously this one had made a slight detour up Channel as it grazed on the swarm.

What a day!