The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Eyes in the Sky: Mast Cams & Drones

You’re approaching an unfamiliar inlet. The water’s shallow, the charts are poor, and you have no real idea of what to expect on the way in. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an eye in the sky, showing you what’s ahead?

The relentless advancement of technology has made photographic reconnaissance so affordable that some of this equipment is now approaching impulse-buy levels. Some of us—particularly those who cruise shallow, coral strewn areas and those who like to fish—will undoubtedly find mast cameras, drone cameras, and other photo recon equipment intriguing.

Mast Cameras

CCTV technology is not exactly new. What’s changed in the last few years is the cost and the quality, both of which have improved dramatically.

An all-encompassing, top-down view of the foredeck and everything within immediate ramming range ahead of it is not difficult to achieve. The cameras and their displays are now commodity items sold for the automotive and security markets, running from $200 to $500 for a set.

Look for:

  • Reasonable field of view. A primary masthead camera should have a viewing angle of 90 to 120 degrees. This gives a good view of everything between the boat’s foredeck and the horizon, with the view centred roughly one boat-length ahead of the bow.
  • High resolution digital sensor. The difference between a 640×480 camera and a 1920×1080 one is quite noticeable. If you’re trying to spot growlers or coral heads, every pixel counts.
  • Large colour gamut and dynamic range. A video image that is close to true colour and isn’t devoid of detail in the brightest and darkest areas is definitely worth the extra few dollars.
  • Standard cabling. Network cameras that use power-over-Ethernet (PoE) and standard streaming video codecs are popular, and are widely supported on all kinds of computers and other display devices. Proprietary protocols can be tricky to troubleshoot, and are best avoided. USB doesn’t have the range to reach a masthead without powered extenders, which cost more than just using PoE in the first place.
  • Good frame rate. Many webcam-style units can do 30 frames per second…. but only at reduced resolution, and might pull only 10 fps at full HD resolution. That’s a recipe for blurred, jerky, unhelpful images. Look for something that can reliably push 30 fps or better at its maximum resolution.
  • Waterproof connector seals. It should go without saying that an exposed Ethernet plug with no gasket or O-ring is not going to last very long on a sailboat’s mast. Connectors rated at IP66 or better are definitely worth the extra $15.

Not necessary:

  • Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It can make installation slightly more convenient, but make sure you won’t have to climb to the masthead to reprogram the thing when it goes offline.
  • High “TVL” rating. Short for “TV Lines”, this is an outdated resolution metric from the analog CCTV days. There are several huge warehouses full of cameras from the 1990s and early 2000s, whose owners are now desperately trying to sell them off. Anything with a TVL number on its spec sheet is outdated analog junk. Far better to spend the extra few dollars for a modern, fully digital system.
  • Integration with any other marine electronics. A simple outdoor 1080p PoE camera, that dumps a video feed to the network for any computer or tablet that you want to use to view it, is sufficient for this job. I’m hard pressed to think of any benefit to be had from trying to integrate it with a chartplotter or other marine electronics.

Drones / UAVs

Unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) are, again, nothing new. The combination of cost, convenience and capability that current models offer, though, is something that some cruising sailors might find interesting.

There’s been a tremendous surge of interest and technological development in tiny unmanned aircraft lately. Simple two-pound quadcopters now cost less than $100, and waterproof long-range ones with real-time video downlinks are selling for $1000 to $2000.

Model aircraft (which are controlled, remotely, by a pilot) and drones (which have an onboard computer that runs the flight controls, following mission instructions set remotely by the pilot) offer the potential to put a live video camera a few hundred feet ahead of the boat. They certainly aren’t the right solution for everyone, but some cruising sailors may well be interested in adding this capability.

Look for:

  • Long endurance. The cheapest UAVs can only fly for five to ten minutes before landing for a battery change. That may not be enough for surveying a tricky inlet or anchorage—and don’t forget some reserve power for the trip back to the boat if the wind changes.
  • High wind capability. Very few UAVs can fly properly in winds stronger than Force 3, and considerable skill is required to handle them in gusty conditions.
  • Reliable, high-quality video downlink. Try before you buy, making sure that the interface is easy to use and that the images are good enough that you’ll be able to see sandbars and coral heads.
  • Waterproof and buoyant. Quadcopters tend to crash rather frequently. Waterproof, floating drones from the likes of Splash, the collapsible inflatable Diodon, or submersible ones like the Tetra, cost a lot more than their dry-land counterparts, but also don’t need to be replaced every time you botch a water landing.

Not necessary:

  • Automatic return-to-base, automatic landing, etc. These features are useless if “home base” has moved during the flight, as is the case for a ship-launched UAV. That said, I can imagine someone flying the drone in and out of a particularly tight anchorage, then copying its GPS track to the yacht’s chartplotter as a series of target waypoints.
  • High-altitude / high-speed capability. If you have one of these things, you’ll always fly it within visual range of the boat, at speeds low enough to see what it’s doing and get usable pictures back, and rarely at more than 300 feet altitude.

Comments

Do you have some form of electronic crow’s nest on your boat (drone or camera)?

Please tell us about it in the comments.

[John here, so far I have kept my gadget freak tendencies under control where  drones are concerned, but given my love of photography it’s been tough.  So do any of you fellow cruisers out there have drones you use for photography and if so, what’s your experience been? Go ahead tempt me.]

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Marc Dacey

I have rather large feet and am a foot taller than my co-skipper. Both factors, along with the cost of pre-made mast steps and the issue of windage and/or line snags, argued against installing mast steps. I ran the numbers and a mid-range drone was actually cheaper than the necessary steps. In addition, I come from a TV/film production background and should be able to, with practice, get great shots of the vessel underway and the places we visit for interested parties at home and abroad. But really, the idea of a 100-metre-high “view over the bow” is the clinching argument. A drone is an exceptional aid to tricky navigation. In addition, many drones can fly about 500 metres up, and possibly greater heights if modified, although I wouldn’t do this near land. Even at the lower altitude, one’s “height of eye” can give you advance warning of squalls/fronts before the radar at the spreaders can. That’s potentially very useful information.

Ernest E Vogelsinger

Just as a note aside, there are countries where drones are plain forbidden. For example, when checking in into Morocco, you’ll be confronted with the question if there’s a drone on board – if you have one the drone must be handed over to the authorities. It will be returned when you’re checking out to leave the country – at least they promise this…

Richard Elder

Hi Ernest
I now live in Wyoming where hunting is as much a part of the culture as branding calves. However with the advent of Mad Deer Disease (CDW) in our herds it is a dying sport. (no pun intended). I’m considering starting an alternative form of hunting. In the spirit of the New West, our member-supported organization will pay bounties for every drone killed and submitted with its body punctured by shotgun pellets.

Ernest E Vogelsinger

LOL now that sounds just like fun 🙂

Stein Varjord

I have no experience with neither mast head camera nor drone, but routinely use Google maps in satellite mode for added info in tight areas and for finding nice looking coves etc. Satellite imagery isn’t fresh info, and also not sharp enough, so improvement is interesting.

For steering into shallow areas, I’d guess a mast cam is the right solution. It’s available immediately, by just turning it on, and should be quite reliable. A drone is way more vulnerable and demands a lot of attention, which might be needed for other tasks, especially when sailing short handed. A drone can look at a bigger area, further away, but this function is often filled well enough by satellite images. A drone can also look from different angles, which in some light conditions could be important for seeing below the surface.

As I think now, in the not too distant future, I’ll get a good mast head camera, wire it by Ethernet (with PoE) to the onboard internet router so the images can be picked up by any internet able device on the boat. I’ll probably get a drone too, when I can afford it, but I guess it’ll mostly be for other purposes than navigation.

Dan Perrott

I like the idea of the forward visibility provided by a drone. Everyone I’ve met with one on a boat has a a hard time landing it back on board in anything other than calm (wind and waves) conditions.

Stephen James

Last winter I cruised with a DJI Magic Pro aboard. Some excellent photos and fun unusual, possibly unique, videos of remote locations made it very worthwhile. A few poorly edited videos are available on YouTube. That said we did keep the drone a secret while in Morocco. Drones are also prohibited in most commercial harbors and now require a license in many locations. Wind is a large consideration and I almost lost it in unknown wind at 200m altitude. Landing on a sailboat is a challenge that was solved with a handheld landing platform (see video) but I never developed the courage to do it while underway. That fact limits its usefulness for navigation for me. For navigation a mast head camera would seem to be much more appropriate.

Petter Mather Simonsen

Would be fun to watch Stephen, and a video or blog link would be helpful. Possible?
Greetings!