The Volvo Ocean Race, formerly The Whitbread, and now renamed The Ocean Race doesn’t happen without Inmarsat, that’s how important it is,’ Brian Carlin says. ‘For the teams and their sponsors it totally hinges on being able to show people what’s happening on the boats in real time. It’s no good coming ashore after 26 days with a hard drive full of amazing footage and photos. People expect to see it happening in real time, that’s a much bigger pull for viewers.’
In a career that has covered many spectacular races and regattas including the astonishingly fast-paced SailGP circuit and the America’s Cup, some of Carlin’s most groundbreaking work has been done during his stints as an onboard reporter and media team leader in the last two editions of the Volvo Ocean Race.
If you’ve seen the gut-wrenching footage of Team Vestas Wind slamming at high speed into the Cargados Carajos Shoals in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the crew’s subsequent ordeal in a liferaft, that’s Carlin at work. Read on.
