YOUTUBE SAILORS — I
locations — Brian Trautman, the skipt's been 25 years since reality TV per of SV Delos, said in an interview with changed the concept of entertainment Slow Boat Sailing that YouTube repreby putting 'ordinary' people in front of a sents "the first time you can cut out the camera. But the Internet — and specifinetworks and all the middlemen. We're cally YouTube — has taken reality TV a just three people on a sailboat running step further. Instead of just appearing on off solar power, and people are realizing screen, ordinary people are now creating you can put out pretty-darn-good conand producing their own content. Among tent that will hold people's interest. We the many videos spawned since Youenjoy the fact that nobody is telling us Tube's inception in 2005, several popular what to do." With enough viewers and sailing channels now have hundreds of supporters, sailing thousands of fans. channel creators Historically, sailYouTube represents "the can actually make ing has been seen as too much of a first time you can cut out the money on their videos — and in some niche to garner innetworks and all the rare cases, make a terest from tradiliving. Currently, tional media outlets, middlemen." there are about four but YouTube has dozen boats trying enabled the creation to fund their cruising through ad income of highly specific entertainment. Sailing and crowd-funding supporters. channels — which can also be called Because the top YouTube Sailors 'vlogs' (an abbreviation for video blogs) have started to accumulate a significant — usually star young, attractive people audience and income, more and more in exotic locales, and in some cases, crews are developing channels, creating have created a business model where competition for viewers and fueling an complete strangers are funding cruisers' arms race of production quality, content adventures. The top 10 YouTube sailing and variety. Each channel has a different channels alone have approximately 300 take on the cruising experience, includmillion views. 'YouTube Sailors' are introing the level of partying and adult-ish ducing an increasingly larger audience to content, and emphasis on sailing versus the joys and excitement of the cruising in-port exploring. And because ad revlifestyle. Given the generous selection of enue is so paltry, sailing channels need sailing channels, we thought it was time to generate massive numbers of views to to review the most popular vlogs. start making meaningful earnings. Commenting on the technology revoHow are the current crop of YouTube lution that has made the modern sail Sailors attracting clicks? Given that the vlog possible — which includes affordoverwhelming demographic for sailing able high-definition cameras, drones and videos is male, it's probably not shocking broadband Internet access in remote You can't talk about 'Delos' without talking about scuba diving. In episode 135, the crew dives with sharks at Bassas da India, a remote atoll in the middle of the Mozambique Channel. The 'Delos' crew brings viewers some stunning underwater footage.
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that attractive female companions and crew are nearly universal in the world of sailing vlogs (tropical locations are also a prerequisite, which in turn brings out the bikinis). Over half of the sailing vlogs have some form of pixilated nudity — some is fairly gratuitous, while some is a natural result of living on a boat in the tropics. Most channels naturally focus on the places they're visiting, but some vlogs feel more like travelogues with the sailing itself as a bit of an afterthought. If you're already an experienced cruiser, these channels can be a great source of information on particular locations you're interested in, and the YouTube Sailors will sometimes answer posted questions about unusual anchorages, provisioning for long passages, etc. But if you're a novice interested in cruising or a liveaboard lifestyle, these videos are both informative and inspiring. While each channel produces videos according to their unique perspective, most inevitably show the challenges and compromises of longer -passage sailboat cruising: dealing with third-world customs officials, MacGyvering repairs on the water, and paying $16 a gallon for diesel in a remote location. As pure