ActiveCaptain - The Great Loop Videos

by Active Corporation on 8 Jan 2015 When we started our Great Loop journey last year, we did something that hadn't been done before - capture the entire Great Loop on video. We mounted a GoPro camera on our flybridge and shot high-def, time-lapse video through every travel day.

We've uploaded some segments through the last year but the holidays gave us the time and high bandwidth
internet required to upload the huge amount of video. Now they're all available on a new Great Loop Videos with ActiveCaptain channel.

There are 129 'T' days - travel days. There are many paths possible for the Great Loop. Ours included the east coast, Hudson River, Erie Canal, Lake Erie, Lake St Clair, Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, Illinois River, Mississippi River, Ohio River, Tennessee River, Tombigbee Waterway, Mobile Bay, Gulf Coast, Florida west coast, Okeechobee Waterway, and back to the east coast. Every day is represented. Only one day was accidentally shot live instead of time-lapse causing part of that day
to be clipped.

There have been many questions about exactly how we shot hours of video on a GoPro that only supports about 3 hours of battery time. We'll spill all the details now about the hardware and software needed to pull all of this together.

The GoPro:
We used a GoPro Hero3 with a 32 GB memory card. For some reason the design doesn't allow you to plug it into USB to keep it powered for long periods of time. We knew we'd have at least one overnight passage so we wanted at least 30 hours of recording time.

It turns out that if you purchase their extra BacPac battery, you can power that with USB and it'll keep the entire camera running for many hours. There are possibly other ways to do this now as well.

We set the camera for high-def image capture and the automatic timer to 5 seconds. At our normal 7.6 knot cruising speed, that would create a virtual video speed that looks like 700 knots. Our typical 40 mile day would then take about three minutes of video. The appearance is slow enough to pick out major features but fast enough to be somewhat less boring.

The GoPro was put in a clear case. It wasn't waterproof but it kept direct rain off. We had our share of rain and it all worked perfectly every day.

The Software:
The GoPro produces a large set of still shots in timer mode. Those shots had to be turned into video acceptable to YouTube. We had a requirement that the final video needed to be high-def compatible.

The software that will do all of this is a little $4.99 app called Time - Lapse from a developer called Microprojects.

The settings that worked best for this are:
FPS: 30
Scale: 720p
Codec: H264
Quality: High
Crop: Middle
Rate: 1X

It took a lot of experimentation to get those values and they worked flawlessly for all of the videos.

The output of the Time-Lapse app is a very large video file that can be uploaded directly to YouTube. YouTube complains that it can be encoded to make it smaller but it works fine.

Some samples:
If you really want to take a trip across the entire Great Loop, all the videos are there. This raw video is in deep need of some annotation, music, and a small chartlet showing the progress. These are all tasks for the future.

There are some interesting things that happen with offshore time-lapse. The smallest two foot waves end up shaking the video. For this reason, those videos are harder to watch.

If you want to see some of the highlights, here are some of our favorites:

Waterford to Amsterdam, flight of locks on the Erie Canal



Clyde to Lyons, a very typical day on the Erie Canal



Palmyra to Fairport, measuring very low bridges on the Erie Canal



Hammond to Joliet, learning to love barges on the Illinois River



Alton to Hoppies, the Mississippi River



Bay Springs to Midway, the biggest lock and beautiful river travel



Dog River to The Wharf, Mobile Bay to the Gulf ICW



Port St Joe to Clearwater, 220 nm overnight - scroll past the night



Longboat Key to Sarasota, a short hop between two fantastic facilities


Pink Shell to Naples, FLorida west coast cruising



River Forest LaBelle to Roland Martins, part of the Okeechobee



Cumberland Island to Jekyll Is, part of the Georgia ICW



Osprey to Barefoot, some of the nicest parts of the AICW




Each video can be viewed in HD by clicking on the little gear icon in the YouTube player and selecting 720p. Then make it full screen with the brackets button on the lower right side and you'll have a better view than we had!

We have the routes used for each leg. Someday they'll be combined with the videos, annotation, reviews, and personal comments within the eBoatCards framework.

We hope this will inspire others to collect time-lapse video of their
journeys. Enjoy!

Defender first

The start of a new year it is a great time to evaluate your safety equipment onboard. A good place to start is your first aid supplies. This week's Defender first special is the Orion Sportfisher Offshore First Aid Kit, a basic but substantial first aid kit at an affordable price.

This well thought out kit has 30 different items-165 total pieces. The full assortment of items comes in a waterproof hard case that can easily be mounted to the bulkhead.

Check out the link for all the features plus the ActiveCaptain Coupon Code.

Orion Sportfisher Offshore First Aid Kit: $43.99 (Regularly: $53.99)

Special ends: January 13, 2015 at 11:59 PM ET

Make sure you have the safety items you need should an accident or medical emergency occur while you're on the water.

Remember - Defender first: one product, one week, one incredible price.

When you're thinking about purchasing boating supplies, think of Defender first.

Dylan and Dee Dee had a wonderful holiday season. They enjoyed traveling to family but are happy to be back onboard where there are fewer 'No' places. It's now time for the crew to start looking forward to their winter at the Berry Islands in the Bahamas. There's much to do including provisioning with Dylan and Dee Dee carefully inspecting every bag of
dog food that comes onboard. See how this hard working crew lives by checking out their blog.