When I first put Kudu on the water in 2008, one of my first encounters with a fellow sailor was on the river Roach. The sailor turned out to be Dylan Winter, a man who is attempting the slowest ever circumnavigation of Britain. No, he’s not going slowly particularly on purpose, it’s just he’s not sailing full time, and he’s visiting every creek and river up the coast.

Many of you will already know of Dylan and his “Keep turning left” series, but for those that don’t; he’s a professional journalist, passionate sailor, and fiercely opinionated narrator of coastal life, that embarked on a mission to film his trip around Britain in a 19 foot Mirror Offshore “sea slug” as he calls it.

Being a professional journalist makes Dylan’s videos a good few marks above the other videos available online. They’re well thought out, entertaining, and indeed educational since he appears to spend a good deal of time researching the places he visits. All of Dylan’s videos are available on youtube for free, but I’ve noticed he’s trying a new method of delivery now, and I felt compelled to blog about it.

I can tell you from first hand experience that producing an ongoing video series takes an awful amount of time and an extraordinary amount of effort. The filming alone consumes moments of tranquillity, and interrupts moments of concentration, and there is a remarkable amount of ad-lib filming required to produce a 10 minute video. Once you have the raw footage, it’s going to take an entire (long) evening to distil that in the editing suite until it’s a short, entertaining, well researched and narrated bit of video.

Dylan has been doing this for free for a couple of years now, and if you haven’t watched his series, I implore you to click here and catch up on it. It is a truly wonderfully entertaining collection of videos. However, his latest video comes at a price, 99 US cents to be precise. You can pay via paypal, and download it via his website, here.

So, why am I blogging about this? It’s not because I have been asked to. I haven’t spoken to Dylan for a long time, and certainly have nothing to gain from this, but I believe it’s an interesting experiment, and one which I am in total support of.

I’m typing this with some television program about selling antiques rudely making a mess of this otherwise peaceful ambience in kitchen at my parent’s house. Everybody involved in this disposable, meaningless television will be paid a good salary. The presenters, the editors, the cameraman (ok, maybe not the cameraman … the list goes on. It costs all that money and the product is something that is so incredibly mind numbing; a space filler in the empty day of a bored person.

What Dylan is doing though, that does mean something. It’s not a space filler, it’s an educational and interesting look at not only our beautiful coast line, but at an adventurists spirit. It’s an inspiration, and of incomparable quality to most of the superficial content delivered in a relentless stream to you telly, but he doesn’t get paid for it. Indeed, when you take in to account the cost of the whole venture, he will almost certainly be losing money, although I dearly hope not at the same rate as I did while at sea.

So, why am I in support of him charging a small fee? Because if he can demonstrate it’s a viable business model, then it will encourage more people to do the same. More adventures will be documented, and whether they be at sea or in mountains, surely that’s the sort of entertainment we should be encouraging? Real life people undertaking real life experiences. Indeed, Dyaln’s video series was a considerable factor in me taking the plunge to do the whole Kudu thing, and if that can inspire me, it can inspire you, or your kids.

In this age of social media we should be actively supporting the people who dare to do something extraordinary. Social media could be the vehicle to encourage and support average people to do great things, but only if we help push it in that direction. The alternative is to continue watching minor celebrities eating worms in a health and safety saturated woodland in Australia.

I’m bored of that crap; get me out of here!

So, as I said I truly have nothing to gain by writing this, nor do I have any current intentions to follow in his footsteps, but I do believe it is a worthy idea to support.

Surely it’s worth a go? 99 cents, or 50 odd pence for 18 minutes of proper entertainment. Yes please.

http://www.keepturningleft.co.uk/index.php

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