last dance
We’ve been following Ryan and Nicola Breymaier’s ocean racing effort for some time now, first in St. Malo for the Route Du Rhum (where they work for Bilou’s team) and now as Ryan prepares to set off for the Barcelona World Race tomorrow afternoon. They are a fabulous couple who’ve made the most of some great opportunities, and they won’t see each other for 3 months or so, and we grabbed them just before their final supper together to talk about Alex Thomson’s appendectomy and the NOR amendment that will allow him to rejoin his boat somewhere off Africa, how much porn Ryan takes on the boat, what surprises Nicola has packed away for the Annapolis sailor, and plenty more reality from this very real couple.
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live it up
Meanwhile, between On-The-Water Anarchy’s live coverage of the start of the Barcelona World Race, the official event webcast, and live network television in Spain and France, the 2010-11 BWR may see the most comprehensive international coverage of any ocean race start in history, putting both the America’s Cup and the Volvo to shame! And you can watch it all RIGHT HERE on the front page of the world’s most excellent sailing website…
Official Feed
The same high bandwidth feed that goes out to the TV stations will also be available here online for almost 6 hours. It’ll be Spanish-only until around 1230 CET, then English through the start and for another half hour or so, then back to Spanish. Expect helicopter shots, long shots from shore and from the Royale Atlantique camera cat, and some graphics and weather analysis. Try this link.
On-The-Water Extravaganze
In contrast, we’ve only got one camera on a 50 foot gin palace, but we’ve also got about 3 hours of incredibly good video from the past two weeks that you’ll want to see. Great interviews with Michel Desjoyeux, Dee Caffari, sponsors, locals, hot chicks, little kids – pretty much everyone. We’ve also got close-up walkthroughs of Open 60s, sail testing videos, and tons of inside information that you will never hear anywhere else. We won’t be able to get right on top of the boats, but we’ll be able to supply you with hours of English reporting and analysis while Ryan’s brother-in-law shoots from the flybridge of our cruiser, and if you join the chat room on our Justin.TV feed, you can tell us what you want to know or see and we’ll try to find out or shoot it for you. Try that with Canal Plus!
It might make the most sense to watch both feeds and turn the sound off one, and we hope you let us know what works best. Our coverage will start early from the dock – maybe 0900 CET – and then break when we move all our gear to the motorboat to go film the start. We’ll re-post all the information in the BWR thread for those who miss it, but you should go there anyway to check out pics of Bilou dancing with some hot photographer, the Neutrogena team’s going away party, and tons more of the slice-of-life stuff that only Mer seems to be able to capture. And of course a huge thanks to Magic Marine, Karver Systems and Charleston Race Week for making our coverage possible – be sure to check out what they have to share with you on their websites. And if you have trouble with the Justin.TV feed below or want to chat or download the iPhone or Android app, go here.
BREAKING NEWS
The Telegraph writes that Dee Caffari will protest the substitution of Alex Thomson for Wouter “Router” Verbraak due to Thomson’s appendix issue. We’ll get you the latest when we find out more.
