How to drone from a boat

Whether you want to drone from speed boats, yachts, kayaks (and more!) – below are the tips I WISH I KNEW that would have helped me to have MORE successful and LESS stressful flights.

I’ve flown from many floating things – in smooth conditions, rough conditions and treacherous conditions hundreds of times. It’s VERY fun, and even MORE fun when you’re prepared and know how to get yourself out of challenging situations.

Below are 8 tips to help you have a successful flight.

1. Perfect your drone hand launch and hand catch

If you feel like you’re “decent” at hand launching and hand landing your drone – that’s great news! But ONLY fly your drone when conditions are perfect, there is little or no wind and there is no current.

Wait? But that’s not real life. WHY?!

In my experience, this is the moment I see pilots FREAK OUT because they realize that a hand catch or a hand launch on land is fine, but now insert wind, waves, a moving boat and water all around you and the situation is suddenly more stressful.

The below video gives you top tips for success. If there is ONE key tip to focus on, it’s to give yourself EXTRA time when landing your drone. You never realize how much the boat is drifting, or how intense the current or waves are until – oh wow, this is kind of hard to catch my drone right now AND it’s running out of batteries.

Bonus: make sure you understand and have tested grabbing your drone from the bottom and QUICKLY flipping it upside down to emergency stop the propellors.

This tip comes through in a clutch when you’re in the Maldives, the boat is rocking so hard someone who is seated is holding your waist so you don’t fall over and you have a wide stance and a slight squat to prevent yourself from falling over as the boat is riding huge waves (and it’s raining).

Next is perfecting your SAFETY settings – or rather, making sure they are actually keeping you SAFE vs. preventing you from flying your drone from a boat…

2. Keep your “home” location updated

As the boat is moving, make sure you’re updating your (new) controller location, or setting the drone home point as a nearby DOCK.

It’s essential your drone knows you have MOVED. Especially if you are moving from point A to B (and not returning to point A).

Consider this: when your drone loses connection with your controller OR your drone gets low on battery, the safety function of “return to home” kicks in. The last thing you want is your drone returning to the original place you launched from and then LANDING thinking you are there. Especially if this means it’s flying AWAY from you and landing in the water (I’ve seen this happen to someone, oops!).

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3. Turn off max distance

If your safety settings have a set max distance, this means if you are boating from point A to point B, your drone will STOP once it’s hit the set distance.

If you’ve never had this happen before, here’s what happens: The drone literally stops as though there is a wall in front of it. It will NOT continue forward until you either turn off this max distance OR update your home location.

Now imagine being in a speed boat moving 20-30 mph. If you don’t know how to quickly change these settings, you can very quickly lose sight of your drone, or worse – lose CONNECTION with your drone and your drone will return to the home point (which is hopefully updated).

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4. Don’t be a sick pilot – sit strategically on the boat

Take care of yourself – this is particularly applicable if you are on a speed boat.

If the boat is going fast, it makes sense to sit in the back of the boat in the middle.

I love getting splashed with water while I am holding my drone controller!

-Said no one ever

No one likes to get splashed while holding a controller. Also, there’s the least movement happening in the back and middle of the boat.

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5. Choose the right speed of your drone

Consider the speed of the boat vs. WHICH speed on your drone.

If you are chasing a boat, or filming a subject doing a water sport – it’s easy to quickly think “sport mode” (i.e. fastest speed).

However, if you’re turning on sport mode, REMEMBER your obstacle avoidance is now off.

So don’t accidentally fly your drone into your subject… and also don’t stare just at your controller so you don’t accidentally hit something else.

• Powerful speed boats can reach up to 60mph (faster than an average drone), so don’t get left in the dust
  
• Water skiing is typically 20-30mph
  
• Wake surfing is slower – closer to 10mph

Below is an honest post on instagram about how EVERYTHING (seemingly) went wrong flying from a boat.

I didn’t know I’d be shooting this quick clip while spending time on the lake for the 4th of July. Just about everything went wrong, I had my pro camera settings wrong, my drone was landing at 41% battery because I had been flying in sport mode, and I thought it was a good idea to wear a sweater while getting soaked leaning off the side of the boat holding a 360 camera on a not-long-enough stick (with nothing on it that would make it float if it dropped). ⁣
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Was everything fine? Yep.

Did I edit something anyway and blast it to the Internet? YEP!⁣

-from instagram post @christinelozada

This is the resulting video I edited…

Now let’s talk about CAMERA settings. If you’re able to safely launch, fly and land your drone, but have terrible photos and videos… is it still a successful flight?

6. ALL camera settings need to be set BEFORE you launch

If you’re shooting in pro mode, make sure your camera settings are ready to go. It’s hard to chase, not lose your drone, AND be changing the camera settings.

Here’s how I do it: When I’ve turned on my drone and I’m waiting for it to find GPS and “get situated”, I’ll usually put it on the seat next to me while I set my “Pro” camera settings.

I’ll try to get it AS CLOSE to what I think will look good once it’s in the air given the time of the day, current light conditions, etc.

Otherwise, make sure it’s already in auto settings and blast away!

7. Shoot in the highest quality

You’re likely going to need to zoom in during the edit (it’s hard to get SUPER close to your subject if it’s moving fast) and 4K + is a must if you’re going to be cropping.

If you have a shaky hand, consider shooting in a higher frames per second (FPS) so you can slow down your footage while editing.

Below is a fun video flying with my favorite captain, Captain Boomies …

8. EXTRA time to land

For new drone pilots, I always recommend bringing in your drone around 35-37% battery if you’re on land.

NO ONE likes to leave gas in the tank when there’s more flying to be had. Here’s one thing to consider: when you’re starting to get low on battery, bring your drone closer to where you’re at and start getting lower shots around you.

This is the equivalent of “starting to get low on air” while scuba diving and continuing the dive RIGHT under the boat until .. well, hm, I think I sucked all of the oxygen out of this tank… and then you bring it in.

(Except in your instance… you’re above the boat, I hope).

This can help you start to evaluate the wind, the current and other factors (oh wow where did all these other boats suddenly come in from with 30 people now staring at me while I land my drone).

Stressed? Bring it in with 37-40%+ battery.

One time I was landing my drone while on a water bike, a manatee family started swimming by and I couldn’t stop looking. Then an entire LINE of baby ducks jumped onto my water bike. I almost fell over with the amount of cuteness happening.

When your drone reaches low battery it not only starts to auto-land, but it beeps. Even when you’re in the above VERY CUTE situation, it is still VERY STRESSFUL. Give yourself time to land.

PRO TIP: If you’ve been flying in sport, your drone will compensate for that and might start to auto land early at 40% battery.

Bottom line

Flying from floating things is fun. If there is just ONE thing you take away from this, it’s… do it. lol.

And then TAG ME @christinelozada if you post anything about it so I can see your amazing results!