J/105 Sailing Drones- Wave of the Future?!

(San Francisco, CA)- A “photo-drone” was recently seen following the J/105 fleet in last weekend’s St Francis YC Spring One-Design Regatta.  It turns out Beto Lopez (of Moon Cricket Films) was flying his aerial quadcopter DJ-1 Phantom 2 Custom with GoPro on-board and captured some very cool perspectives on the fleet racing down the waterfront.  Check out this cool sailing video here

As  you can see in the close up of JAM SESSION #434, it shows the main halyard is way, way over-trimmed and it’s over the top black band!  Oh dear, someone tell the crew to release it!

According to Beto, “I was flying out to 2,000 feet from shore to follow along the racing boats of San Francisco Bay from the Marina Green.  I was in 98% FPV (first person view) mode- using “heads-up” type goggles.  In the end you can see me when I take the FPV goggles off while the quadcopter is landing. I can actually fly FPV 100% from take-off to landing.

More videos coming soon. Surfing, skate boarding, fog shots in San Francisco, beaches, sunsets, cross country road trips etc.  Hundreds of hours of aerial footage I still need to edit.”  You can see more of Beto’s work here.