06/06/2026
Bellevue Ocean 2026 - SS1 Official Race Video Update
Dear Bellevue Ocean Race family & friends! We want to thank you all for joining our race, sharing the water with everyone and celebrating our beloved sport! And by "all", we mean every single one of you!
We would like to give you an update on the official race video, and the process of producing it, and the other social media content we have been putting out. The video is almost ready, we have to do a little fine tuning, but hope to release it by the beginning of next week. We have incredibly beautiful footage from the drones, people on the beach at start and finish, and the Insta360 camera on the pole at the finish line. The screenshots from the video will give you an impression of what to expect. We are excited, and we can't wait to share the video with all of you.
The team working on the video
Danish Drone Dynamics - the drone company we hired - produced 90 GB of raw footage. We have hours of additional footage from the Insta360 cam and shorter clips we have been taking on the beach. Three of us have been working on video content. Henning Hansen recorded all participants of the SS2 race on Sunday from the beach in Helsingør, and he assembled and released a video for the SS2 race on Sunday.
Martin Branebjerg produces the SS1 race video. He went through all the 90GB of drone footage, his Insta360 footage, the videos other club members took. I helped him a couple of hours, but the did absolutely most of the work. We do not have drone footage of everyone arriving at the finish line for the SS1. The drone pilots ran out of battery before everyone finished. It was a matter of budget limitation for this year's race.
Social media footage on Facebook and Instagram: Focus on elite paddlers and men?
As you have seen, I have been publishing a lot of content on Facebook and Instagram over the past two weeks. Yes, there was a focus on elite athletes, and the reason was the limited time I have.
I have invested over 130 hours of my private time into creating material we can use to target sponsors for the 2026 and 2027 race. We had very little content to start with, and my strategy was to focus on the content which will most help us to attract more funding for the Bellevue Ocean Race. And had to make tough decisions on what is "the best use of my time" with that goal in mind.
In the process, I gave some of you the feeling that I'm too focused on elite athletes, and that we did not feature the women competing in the race in the way they deserve to be presented with the first content we released. If you feel like that, I apologize, that was not my intention. I value and respect every single one of you! The official SS1 race video will reflect that, as well as future content we will release.
This year is the first time we are releasing an official SS1 race video with drone footage. And we are all learning:
* How to process 90GB of drone footage.
* Drone pilots: How does an ocean race work, which moments should be captured, which angle, how close to the paddlers, etc. For a first ocean race, they did a fantastic job!
* Which content should make it into the race video.
* How to present all of you, the sport and our race in the best possible way.
We will listen and learn, and please share any kind of feedback with me or the rest of the org team. Thanks again, and expect the video very soon! 🙌🙏🌊
You can share feedback with us through Facebook Messenger for the BellevueOceanRace account, Instagram, or by emailing us! We welcome every voice and opinion!
