8 Tips for Photographing Sailboat Regattas, with Maritime Photographer Onne van der Wal

When most of us think of “sports photography,” we immediately think of iconic images from the world of land-based sports—American football, track and field, boxing, baseball, and others. One could argue, however, that yacht racing and sailing regattas provide the canvas for some of the most spectacular images in all of sports. And, if you have spent time around the water, seen the framed print on the wall of my physical therapist’s office, or flipped through the pages of any sailing magazine, you might have noticed that professional sailboat racer-turned-professional photographer and Canon Explorer of Light Onne van der Wal is the photographer behind many epic sailing images.

Photographs © Onne van der Wal

B&H Photo Video chatted with van der Wal before one of his recent on-water workshops, to get some tips on photographing sailboat racing from one of the masters of the genre.

Vehicle

“Obviously, you need to have a good vehicle to get out there,” says van der Wal. Options include a standard, rigid-hull inflatable boat (RHIB—pronounced “rib”); or another type of powerboat as a chase platform; getting on a racing sailboat itself as a shooter or onboard reporter (OBR); or getting in the water with a waterproof housing or camera and shooting boats turning at the mark. van der Wal says, “You can swim around at the mark, which is a little risky, but fun.” All those options, minus the swimming, have costs involved.

Your last option is going airborne in a helicopter.

There are pros and cons to each type.

OBR: “On board, your perspective is very much with a wide-angle lens and you don’t catch a lot of the other boats racing. Maybe if there is somebody close to you or in a crossing situation it can be very nice,” says van der Wal. If you are only shooting the race for a day, he doesn’t recommend going on board to get images. Also, there is a “big advantage” in being a racing sailor on board with a camera. If the crew knows that you know what is going on during the race and while maneuvering, they won’t worry about you getting in the way or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. “If you are a newbie, they will keep you in the back,” he says.

Swimming at the mark: “Obviously, you get a beautiful perspective of half-in/half-out where you see the keel and the waterline and the boat.” Again, van der Wal doesn’t recommend this if you are doing a one-day regatta or shooting for only the day, because the shots are limited. He either jumps into the water with the camera in an Aquatech UW housing or carries a large monopod in his RHIB so that he can attach a camera and get this shot without getting in the water. [As a racing sailor, I would advise you to only do this with an offset mark to reduce the chance of boats crossing or ducking and not making the mark and sailing where you are swimming!]

RHIB: van der Wal says, “My number one thing to do is RHIB, because you can really run around and do a lot. It’s a nice perspective—you can catch the start, and two boats, one boat, get far away, etc.” Although it has been done by some photographers, van der Wal chooses not to drive the RHIB and shoot—for his own safety and that of the racing boats.

Helo: “Of course, the helicopter is my second-best angle,” he says. He loves the low shot from the aircraft, “25 feet above the deck with a 400mm lens it almost looks like you are on the water.” But, the problem, he adds, is the expense. “The cheapest that I know you can get a [Robinson] R44 [helicopter] for is $650 an hour… but you can get a hell of a lot done in that hour because you can zip from one part of the course to the other.” He also wants helo pilots who aren’t afraid to go low and slow—at least 50 feet. Turbine helicopters will cost easily twice as much.

van der Wal also uses a drone, “but it doesn’t replace the helicopter,” because you are limited by the lens on the drone.

He adds that if you are shooting a two-day regatta, you might choose to shoot from the air one day and the RHIB the next. On a one-day event, he will choose the RHIB unless it is super windy and choppy, in which case he will go aloft in a helo to stay a bit drier.

The Driver

“It is very important to get a good driver,” says van der Wal, for when you are on a RHIB or other type of chase boat. “My perfect boat driver is an experienced dinghy sailor… they know racing inside and out.” The second-best driver to get, he adds, “is a sport fishing boat with a sport fisherman who knows nothing about sailing and you tell him exactly where you want to be.” The worst is “to get a sailor who isn’t really a sailor who thinks he is a sailor who drives a motorboat which he does half badly and then he says, ‘We can’t get any closer,’ because he thinks he is affecting things. That is the worst driver.” Van der Wal also uses Lexar’s 64GB cards that enable him to spend the whole day shooting and not change cards, risking getting water in the camera.

Protect Your Gear from the Wet

van der Wal carries SKB waterproof cases with three Canon EOS 5D MK IV camera bodies and Canon lenses—one with an EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM, one with an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM, and one with a the EF 200-400 f/4L IS USM w/ 1.4x Extender. Lens hoods are de rigueur to help keep spray off the front of the lens. The idea is that you do not want to change lenses while underway where you could easily get spray and water inside the camera and on the sensor. “You are never going to find a boat that is completely bone dry—my RHIB is pretty damn good—but whether it is from the heavens or from the ocean, you’re gonna get spray,” says the long-time sailor. He also carries an umbrella and is happy to hand that to the driver or someone else while he shoots in the rain.

van der Wal prefers the SKB cases over the competition for reasons of cost and weight. The weight becomes a huge factor when he is travelling by air to a far-off shoot for a client or going aloft in a helicopter.

Have the Right Gear for Travel

When flying to a shoot, van der Wal packs all the cameras and gear in a Think Tank wheeled carry-on bag and then packs his clothes, tripod, sailing foulies, and other gear into the SKB cases and checks them. He also likes that the SKB cases are a bit less conspicuous than other brands of hard cases and camera bags.

van der Wal always gets a press pass for the events he shoots and, he says that sometimes, airlines will cut you a break on luggage weight if you are traveling media.

Shutter Speed Is Key

The biggest mistake van der Wal sees with others on the water is that people are not shooting with sufficient shutter speed. “With a 200mm lens on the water, you have to be at least at 1/500 of a second, because you get a lot of movement—bumping and rolling.” Experienced shooters know how slow they can go and how good their image stabilization is. Van der Wal shoots often with the Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS II USM, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM, and the Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM lens and always tries to get his shutter up around 1/1500 or 1/2000. This is even more critical, he says, at the end of the day when you are getting tired. With today’s ISO performance, he knows he can get the ISO up around 1000 and still get great noise performance in those really dark shooting situations.

Cotton Washcloths

van der Wal is a big fan of the standard hotel white cotton face cloths to keep his front elements dry and clear when shooting. He doesn’t worry about spray and salt water on the camera until the end of the day. After a day on the water, he takes one of those washcloths, wets it substantially and, without ringing it out too much, wipes down all his gear—drying it with a fresh and dry cloth from the towel rack and leaving the gear out of the cases to dry.

Condensation Considerations

If shooting in colder climates, van der Wal will leave his gear in a colder area—not in a warm cabin—removing the batteries, so that the gear will not have to spend too much time acclimating and getting fogged up. “You can lose 20-40 minutes with those big lenses getting acclimatized to 30 degrees, and you might just lose that perfect shot of the iceberg with the albatross or whatever.” The same applies to leaving an air-conditioned cabin in the tropics, you’ll want to keep your gear out of the A/C so that it doesn’t fog up when you come out on deck.

Protect Your Data

After a day on the water, van der Wal will download all of his images to his laptop using a Lexar card reader. If a client needs photos immediately for social media, he uses Photo Mechanic to export a few files and then he backs up all the photos on an external hard drive so that he has two copies. If he is in a “shaky hotel” or area, he will take the external hard drive with him to dinner in case the “cleaning staff cleans out the room, plus all of the gear, so I just have the photos of what we spent $10,000 on—chartering a boat, a helicopter, and five models—so you don’t come back to the room and find everything missing.” Back in the Newport home office, van der Wal then downloads all his assignment images from his traveling hard drive to a Synology 12 bay NAS system.

van der Wal’s travel and office storage workflow have been perfected after years of shooting and traveling and being cautious so as not to lose any data ever, be it while on the road or in the office.

About Onne van der Wal

van der Wal was an amateur photographer when he was sailing as bowman and engineer on 76' maxi sloop Flyer, in the 1981-1982 Whitbread Round the World sailboat race. Because of his photo experience, he was asked to document life on Flyer’s victorious 124-day circumnavigation, for a sailing magazine. For 10 years, until 1987, van der Wal raced ocean-going sailboats, logging the Whitbread, 10 trans-Atlantic crossings, and more than 150,000 miles on the sea before moving ashore to be a photographer full time. This experience allows him to work seamlessly with sailing crews and boat owners to get the best shot possible. With his wife, Tenley, van der Wal operates his business and runs a gallery on Bannisters Wharf, in Newport, Rhode Island, taking assignments and teaching workshops all over the world.

van der Wal’s gear list

Canon bodies:
Canon EOS 5D MK IV cameras with BG-E20 grips (3)
Canon C200 video camera
GoPro HERO cameras (5)
Canon Large format Prograf printers

Canon lenses:
Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM
Canon EF 8-15mm f/4 L Fisheye USM
Canon EF 16-35mm f/4L IS USMCanon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM
Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS II USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4L IS II USM
Canon EF 200-400 f/4L IS USM w/ 1.4x Extender.

Manfrotto/Bogen/Gitzo carbon tripods + heads and LED lights

SKB waterproof cases
Think Tank camera & gear bags (wheelie, backpack, tripod, drone, and briefcase)
Aquatech underwater housing
Lexar CF, SD, Micro SD cards
EasyRig video camera support rig
Kenyon K8 Gyro for video work
Westscott Icelight 2 portable led lights
Breakthrough Polarizer and ND filters
Synology RAID back-up HD system
Zhik sailing clothing

Apex 25-foot RHIB chase boat with 225 hp Honda outboard
Apple Mac computers (Mac Book and Mac Pro)

Previous Pause Next

Share your own experiences photographing on the water in the Comments, below. And for more sports-related news, tips, and reviews, be sure to check out the Sports Photography section of B&H Explora.