SisterShip Watches ...
By Amy Alton We’re introducing a new column to SisterShip Magazine! In future issues we’ll explore sailing channels on YouTube and the women behind them. In March of this year, I completed a world circumnavigation on my catamaran, Starry Horizons. A considerable aspect of our trip was filming our adventure – we’ve published over 150 video episodes during our six-year journey, plus informational videos like how we set up our catamaran to sail around the world. We are the first channel to document a sailing circumnavigation from start to finish. When my husband and I started our YouTube videos, sailing channels were rare. Sailing La Vagabonde uploaded their first video the same week we did, and Delos had thirtysomething episodes out. Since then, YouTube sailing channels have exploded. Sailingchannels.com has hundreds of channels listed on their website, while dozens of channels make a full-time living from their videos. Sailing La Vagabonde has grown mainstream, with almost one-and-a-half million
subscribers. Our channel is moderately successful at 21,000 subscribers. We’ve maintained the attitude throughout our travels that our videos will be a way to memorialize our trip. Hopefully, we’ll be watching these videos with fond memories when we’re octogenarians. In the next issue of SisterShip, I’ll dive into an interview with a woman who, with her partner, creates and publishes YouTube videos. For now, let’s look at the basics of videos and what’s made them so popular. WHO WATCHES CHANNELS?
SAILING
With the trend to cut cords and transition away from cable services to subscription services such as Netflix, YouTube has become an increasingly popular method of entertainment at a low cost to viewers. One billion hours of videos are watched daily on YouTube. Our channel alone is responsible for over 360,000 hours of watch time in our lifetime. While the US is responsible for 36% of our views, the rest SisterShip 10
