Motor Boat & Yachting – May 2018

Having gained the confidence to
believe I now had sufficient mastery
of take-off, landing and manoeuvring,
as well as its somewhat daunting
flight and camera settings, the time
had finally come to take it out to sea.
The obvious place to launch and
land the drone was from the large
sunbed on the bow, and my first
flights were made while still moored
up on our home berth in the Marina
d’Arechi, Salerno. In order to utilise
the drone’s camera, you have to
attach your smartphone to the
DJI controller and then download
software to operate and control
a multitude of features from your
phone’s screen. If you just want to fly
the drone without using the camera,

you can do this without linking it to

your smartphone.

The safety rules covering the use

of a drone state that you should

always keep it in sight while flying it.

ability to track a moving object such

as a boat, whether flying backwards,

forwards, sideways or even when

circling around it, I limited its use

to when we were at anchor or berthed

in a marina. However, in the short

time that I had it, I still managed

to capture these fabulous images of

some of the places that we cruised to

in July and August last year, including

what is now an annual pilgrimage

south to the Aeolian islands and

Tropea, as well as our local cruising

area along the Amalfi Coast and the

Neapolitan islands.

Its painful demise came about while

I was endeavouring to get a photo of

Artemisia berthed in the picturesque

marina of Sant’Angelo, Ischia. The

Mavic Pro has sensors that enable it

to avoid objects whilst flying forward,

but not backwards. Unfortunately,

I was concentrating so hard on

composing the best shot on my

phone’s screen that I totally forgot

about the 200m-high cliff behind

me until I saw the images of my poor

drone tumbling downwards and

coming to rest halfway up the

cliffside. A very expensive mistake

but to be honest, I was more upset

about losing all the fantastic videos

and photos that were stored on the

memory card. I have been in mourning

for the last six months while trying to

justify buying a replacement. In that

time, DJI have brought out a newer,

smaller and less-expensive drone

called the Mavic Air which has rear

sensors too. So no prizes for guessing

what I’ve just bought! Mark Weiss

Whilst this makes sense, in practice

it is difficult to adhere to. Firstly, the

drone has a range of several miles and

given its size, it’s impossible to keep

sight of beyond a couple of hundred

metres at most.

Secondly, I found

that in bright

sunshine it was

difficult to see the

screen of my phone

and was obliged

to find some shade,

which on my boat

usually meant the

cockpit. And thus,

the seeds of my

drone’s destruction

were sown.

Since I had yet

to master all the

amazing features

of the Mavic Pro,

which include the

Amazing volcanic rock

formations off Panarea with

Stromboli in the distance

Sunrise over

Filicudi

Mark fl ying his pride and joy from

his chill zone on the fl ybridge

Artemisia on her home

patch off the Amalfi Coast

The Mavic Pro

in its prime

BOAT MASTER OURBOATS