Filming and editing nonstop for 48 hours – on a mobile phone – on a racing sailboat.

Last summer I did something that, at least to me, felt a little bit crazy. I participated in the sailing competition Gotland Runt. I was obviously not invited because of my rusty sailing skills — but to document the entire journey. Everything I had ever heard about this race was that it's always extremely harsh conditions.

The boat is constantly rocking, things on board always break, you don’t get to sleep, everything is wet — and it’s cold, too.

Despite this preconceived notion I had of the race, I couldn’t say no when the crew on the boat Warpath asked if I wanted to join them. To make it workable—given that there was no budget to spend several weeks editing afterward—I realized I would have to edit everything on board, in real time. As I mentioned, my assumption was that absolutely everything would get wet, so bringing a laptop to edit on site didn’t feel like an option. The solution was to film and edit everything using my iPhone.

And what a journey it turned out to be!

Incredibly enough, we managed to stay both dry and warm. I even think I picked up a bit of a tan. Looking back, I honestly wonder how I would have managed this if the conditions had been what they usually are—strong winds on a pitching, heeling boat. I also get seasick quite easily, so staring down at a phone is not a great idea in that situation. And I felt a little seasick at first. So I am extremely grateful for the favorable weather, because otherwise I truly don’t think it would have been possible to edit film this way. Most of the time you had to sit on one side of the boat with your feet (and your phone) dangling over the sea. You really had to keep a tight grip on the gear.

A boat jostling through the water isn’t exactly quiet, so to even have a chance of hearing what I was doing while editing my footage, I had to wear AirPods. At the same time though, it was important to stay aware of what was happening around me, so I could only have one earbud in. This turned out to be a great exercise in practicing "good enough" for me. Delivering perfectly balanced sound under those conditions was simply impossible — the priority had to be getting content out on social media. That turned out to be a challenge in itself, since we had no reception for most of the first day. When we passed Fårö, the others knew there was a chance of getting some signal if you were lucky — so I managed to send a video and some photos to Emelie, who could then post the material for me.

An incredible experience, with an amazing and talented crew who are truly passionate about sailing.

It was truly inspiring to meet everyone on this team and to get a glimpse of their knowledge and harmonious teamwork. Sure, it was exhausting not to sleep more than two hours at a stretch—and sometimes not even that, since I had my job to do—but it was still an amazing experience with a fantastic group of people.

And now! Many months later, I’ve finally gotten around to polishing the sound a bit, so I feel it’s ready to share it again. I've also edited all the clips into one longer film. So, if you want to see Chimli Retouch & Motion go all in as content creators for a whole weekend, you can check out the result here!