Sailing YouTube Channel Debate

I follow a lot of sailing YouTube channels. There is a lot of contention about them in the sailing community.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that people are complaining that YouTube beggars are trying to get people to fund their “sailing vacation fun time.”

My thinking is that if you feel that way, don't donate any money. However, that's not good enough for those people. They don't want anyone to donate money towards sailing channels.

I think there's a lot of value to most sailing channels. In fact, when my lovely wife and I were learning to sail, we watched a lot of “how to” videos. They helped a lot. There are some useful videos about buying a used boat, boat repair, and places to go sailing. Seems to me that if a video about your malfunctioning sailboat helps you fix it, sending a little money to the channel is a good way to say thank you.

There are a lot of videos featuring good looking people in exotic places. One of the biggest out there is S. V. Delos. Some people are jealous that they can live life as a “permanent vacation.” What a lot of people miss is that making videos is hard work. For every minute of video, there may be hours of editing work. Many channels have a huge investment in camera equipment, computers, and other audio and visual gear. The salt air environment is hard on electronics so constant replacement and upgrades are necessary.

On the flip side, there are a few channels that instead of edited videos do mostly live streaming. That's an easy way to generate a video as no time is spent editing. Some of these guys do not seem to be doing much more than begging for money. I suppose that's their right, but it doesn't mean you have to give them any.

Would I set up a YouTube channel? Heck no! That's too much work. If my lovely wife was interested in doing the bulk of the work, maybe. She, however, has no desire to do it. Frankly, at the end of a long day on the water, I'm lucky if I have the energy to make a short blog post.

-Sixbears