You know it has been a good summer when you've spent more time in the water than out of it. That's especially true when you get to wear your boardshorts, or if you're a brave girl like Sophie Luther (above), your bikini.
Sophie came swimming and surfing out at St Clair Beach with us while Aaron McGrouther filmed with his drone – you can see how we make these shots on our Facebook page. For Sophie her summer bikini swim couldn't have been timed any better. The very next day she boarded a plane bound for a mountaintop in Austria. She works for Animation Research Limited – a world-leader in tracking, animation and production, based right here in Dunedin, New Zealand.
"We're heading to Austria to try out some new tracking technology for Red Bull in the Freeride World Tour," she explains. "We've modelled the mountain and we will be able to track in real time the skiers going down for the live stream so people can watch the event unfold."
The success of ARL's animation and tracking needs no introduction – you've seen it in action in yacht racing around the world and in stadium sports like cricket.
"Red Bull is looking to embrace new technology involved in all their sports so we are hopeful that this will flow onto their other sports as well. Real-time tracking would open up a lot of possibilities for them," Sophie smiles as she thaws out in the sun after her swim. "It's about getting the information out quicker."
She said this was probably one of the first times the technology had been used in skiing on an individual athlete basis.
"They're even going to try to ping off the athlete's mini cams to a helicopter and then back down to the base station. So you'll actually get live shots from on board the skier and then that would interact with our tracking and essentially we could have live rankings as they descend. It's great to see these extreme sports are now attracting more funding and are able to explore some of these exciting new ways of broadcasting."
Extreme sport is nothing new for Sophie. She spent 10 years as the communications manager for the Volvo Ocean Race.
"I did three editions of the race and used to look after the media and comms for the whole event. It was hard work – I did a lot of travelling and basically spent 10 years on the road organising and planning the event's media."
The event runs every three years and involves a huge team.
"You have a travelling team of about 150 people with the race and then the teams with their shore crew of about 50 people. You become a big travelling circus moving around the globe. Our communications team included a dedicated TV, web, photography and radio team with about 25 people," she laughs. "It was incredible – you get to see so many different cultures and work with so many different people."
Sophie said her highlight was helping to bring the girl's team back into the race.
"The boats used to be very big and the volume of water going across the deck was so immense that women's bodies would break really easily – it just wasn't safe. With the change of rules the boats became smaller and that meant there wasn't so much water going across the decks so the women's team became a viable option."
Sophie said the women's team had been doing as well as the guys' teams – particularly in the in-port racing.
"They're proving that when they have a level-playing field then they're up to it."
Surfing for Sophie is just an escape from work and her training – she has a handful of goals in mountain biking and road cycling this year.
"I'm trying to beat my terrible record at Motatapu," she laughs. "And then I'll race the Benchmark Road Race series with a team of girls from Dunedin."
In the meantime, she'll be atop a mountain in Tirol with -10°C temperatures and some new technology to prove.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS We're stoked to welcome Amazon to the Box of Light family. They're offering readers some pretty cool prices on some fresh new kit – check it out here.
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