News

• All

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 13 Maiden

  The mid to late 80's were a great time to live in Hamble.It was pretty crazy with the King & Queen, Dodgy Eater, Celeb Club, The Pink House etc etc. Maybe it's the same now if you are in your twenties?I hope not, many of us were lucky just to live through it! When Tracy announced the Maiden campaign I saw it from the start.I saw the highs and lows of trying to get

  Published 12:11 on 13 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 12 2001/2 VOR The unspoken bond

  The friends you make during a Volvo race can last a lifetime, whether it's the shared experience offshore or onshore there is a common, often unspoken, bond. When a race is over the teams and management, propagate all over the circuit. You can having a coffee, more likely a beer, in Sardinia or St Tropez or Sydney and a familiar face will join you.It's the nod, the handshake, the eye contact, the unspoken

  Published 12:03 on 13 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 11 2001/2 VOR The Offshore Sorties

  Going through the hard drives for yesterdays post reminded once again there are many more pictures from 2001/2 that it would be great to show. Cameraman George Johns, Steve Ancsell and I were tasked with bringing the race images to the public as much as we possibly could, and it turned out to be quiet an adventure.The race had a web site and we had email, mostly using Compuserve.No more the results on Ceefax.

  Published 06:32 on 10 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 10 2001/2 The first Volvo Ocean Race

  04 December 2001 Volvo Ocean Race - Assa Abloy surfs at over 30 knots towards Sydney at the end of leg 2 Cape Town to Sydney of the Volvo Ocean Race 2001/2. I was the official photographer for the 2001/2 Volvo Ocean Race, working with Steve Ancsell and cameraman George Johns we were a team tasked with photographing the boats around the world wherever they were in striking distance from the shore. This was

  Published 20:44 on 8 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 9 Whitbread The Crews

  This is a random selection of pictures of the crews from the 85, 89, 93, 97 races.I am not able to access my slide archive at the moment so these are just the pictures that I happen to have on my hard drives. There are so friends and characters in these shots, the pictures don't have names on but you will recognise many.If there is a picture of you in this post that you would

  Published 20:43 on 8 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 8 Whitbread - The Boats

  The 1989 Whitbread is often cited as being one of the best, there were 23 entries, the largest fleet in any Whitbread race and the fleet went to North America for the first time.The diversity of the fleet is often forgotten, from a team of postmen on a 51foot Benetau, to Peter Blake's maxi ketch Steinlager 2, to me the ultimate Whitbread boat. There was even a Cruising Division, maybe that could be brought back?

  Published 14:44 on 6 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 7 Always pushing the envelope

  Before we move on from the Whitbread era I thought we could look at some of the more challenging pictures. To take pictures onboard you have to have the "buy in" from the crew.There were many examples of this is on Drum, like when we set the spinnaker pole going upwind just to photograph a sail change, that we probably didn't need.Or flying off a halyard to leeward to take a shot of the

  Published 07:10 on 4 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 6 The first High Latitude experience

  There was, and still is to this day, a very strong bond within the crew of Drum, for obvious reasons. Many of us are still in contact and have shared other great adventures. Just a few months ago I was onboard Pelagic Australis leading a group in the Falkland Islands. The first expedition boat Pelagic came about from conversations sitting on rail on Drum. Three of the crew agreed they would build

  Published 11:09 on 3 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 5 How the Calendars started

  In parallel to the Whitbread Races, the first Rick Tomlinson Yachting Calendar was published in 1989. This was a result of two particular pictures, the Jameson knockdown and the Gotland Runt in fleet in Sandhamn, Sweden. The Jameson Whiskey picture was taken at the 1987 Irish Admirals Cup trials off Howth. It was blowing hard, and I was taken out to photograph the racing in a small 4 meter Avon RIB. It was

  Published 15:33 on 1 Apr 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 4 Team EF Whitbread 1997/8

  The last Whitbread Race I sailed was the 97/98race with Team EF.Pre-race I was having a chat with Johan Salen about my possible involvement.I said I would like to sail the first and second leg onboard and then continue as the Team photographer ashore.Great said Johan, one on the girls boat and one on the boys.I was a bit surprised and didn't reply quickly enough, he just left the room. And that was how it

  Published 14:02 on 31 Mar 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 3 Intrum Justitia 1993/4 Whitbread Race

  Whitbread 60 Intrum Justitia.This main shot was taken in the Southern Ocean, well to the south or Tasmania on leg three of the 1993/4 Whitbread, Fremantle to Auckland I came on watch just as dawn was breaking.Before I took over the spinnaker trim I shot about 6 frames looking forward into the dawn light.It was blowing 45 knots and the waves were pretty big. In my calendar caption from 1995 I

  Published 16:35 on 30 Mar 2020

• 

  "Behind the Lens" Part 2 The Card 1989-90 Whitbread

  Going forward from Drum, 4 years later quiet a few of the same crew were sailing the Swedish entry The Card skippered by Roger Neilson with Magnus Olsson and Gurra Krantz the watch leader. One of my memories of sailing on the maxis in the Whitbread was the number of headsail changes we seemed to do.We had three#1 headsails, light, medium & heavy, a #2, #3, #4, #5 and a storm jib.It took everyone

  Published 16:29 on 30 Mar 2020