Blog

By Tyler Colvin
What does a passion for Shakespeare, world class Ultimate Frisbee talent and professional sailing media have in common? Ashley Love knows.  Editor in Chief at T2PTV (co-founded by Tucker Thompson & Bruce Nairn), she has sailed internationally, studied theatre, coached college sailing, represented the US in Ultimate and now is creative genius behind a lot of T2PTV’s programming.  “I produce, film, edit, write scripts, do voiceovers, design and animate graphics, conduct interviews and the newest venture: commentate,” said Love, “We travel the world to do a lot of same-day coverage of regattas, but we also produce promotional content and documentaries.”
Growing up on Barnegat Bay in New Jersey, Love sailed Optis, Bytes and Lasers.  Competing internationally in her youth, she chose to pursue academics at the University of Richmond.  There she studied Theatre and English and played Ultimate Frisbee.  But as with any life long sailor, she couldn’t stay landlocked for long, taking off for Australia and getting her coaching certificate there in 2007.  In 2008 she was asked to compete on the Mixed Division team at the 2008 Beach Ultimate Worlds in Maceio, Brazil, where they won gold.  She followed this by qualifying to represent the US at the 2009 Women’s Laser Radial World’s.
It was a combination of travel, coaching and high level competition in multiple sports that led her to the Sail1Design classifieds and an assistant coaching gig at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.  At HWS, in addition to sharing the wealth of knowledge she had accrued, Love spent a lot of time with a waterproof camera taking video of the team.  Eventually she was asked to put together the end of year banquet video for the women’s athletic program and discovered a new venue for her skills and creativity.
At the end of the school year, she found herself at the Sail1Design job board yet again.  “At the end of the school year, I returned to the job listing board on Sail1Design and saw that a company called T2P was looking for interns in Annapolis, MD.  I got in my car and drove south this time to Annapolis to join Dave Dunigan and Tucker Thompson for an Annapolis Yacht Club Wednesday Night Race, and stayed with family friends Geoff and Mary Ewenson (of Spinsheet Magazine).  After a solid night of being in awe of what T2PTV did, they asked me to be their intern up at the NYYC Race Week at Newport presented by ROLEX.  So I got in my car again and drove up to Newport, RI.  This was where I met Bruce Nairn for the first time.”  Nairn and Tucker Thompson were the brain trust behind T2P and innovators in live online sailing coverage.
It was in Newport, on a Swan 42, that Love found her calling. “He [Nairn] taped a Sony Handicam to my hand in a plastic bag and sent me out on a Swan 42 with an all female crew called Better Than with predictions of wind and rain on the offshore course.  That wind and rain became a 50-knot thunderstorm and I had never been on a keelboat like that before.  I held onto the backstay with my free hand and filmed the drama that ensued, with my jaw dropped nearly the entire time.  Our spinnaker wrapped itself around the head stay so we were sailing DDW and suddenly, I felt I had to turn around to see what was behind me.  As I did, I saw another Swan that still had their kite flying.  They had to heat up to pass behind us and in an instant, that boat wiped out and almost landed their wind indicator in my lap as I held on for dear life.  I knew then that I wanted to do this for a living.”
Love packed her car yet again and headed to Annapolis and started showing up at the T2P offices where Nairn cleared off a desk and gave her an old laptop with the instructions of learning the editing software.  Her first assignment was making a music video from the Better Than footage.  Her first trip as “Camera B” was International ROLEX Regatta in St Thomas.  Her first solo trip was to Moth Worlds, in Cascade Locks, Oregon.
It is her diverse background that she believes gives her an edge in the industry. “My theater background prompted me to try to learn as much as I can about the fleets, the boats and the competitors, to tell the audience the stories and make the show personal.  My coaching background helps me include some tactics and strategy and time on the water as a sailor hopefully adds some humor just to keep things interesting.”
A day-in-the-life for Love depends on the season. “Over the winter, you’ll find me in the office working on long-term projects, local retainer gigs and shiny new graphics packages.  Spring, summer and fall, I’m usually either on a plane, on a racing boat filming “on-boards”, editing music videos for award ceremonies, hanging out of a helicopter or trying to find the best way to get something like the Golden Gate Bridge into the shot.”
Despite the sometimes-hectic schedule, she manages to mix some sailing into her weeks as well. “Another place to find me is offshore cruising or delivering or in the truck hauling the J80 or J70 I compete with to the next event.  I private coach and compete regularly in Annapolis and all over the country to keep my thumb on the pulse of the sailing scene…”
The most rewarding part of the job for Love is seeing a project through from conception to live online.  “Last year, I was asked to sail to Cuba, so I brought several cameras along, helped sail the boat five days from the coast of Florida to the most Northeast port we were allowed to go through customs, filmed the entire trip from the boat, the rental car, the baseball stadium seat, fortresses, 1940s cab rides, and from the walks through coastal, rural and metropolitan locations all while taking care of each other, learning about the country, its immanent future and interviewing locals along the way. When I got back to the States, I laid out the documentary, researched the subject, edited it, scripted it, voiced it, and completed it with the help of Bruce at T2PTV with his support in the form of time, cameras, resources and distribution. “
Love believes it is the ability to go and do anything, be “an aspiring Jill of all trades” that has made T2PTV and specifically her role within the company, so successful.  “The best videographers are ones that also do the editing, and the best editors are the ones who shot the footage.  The best producers are the ones who will be doing all of the rest of the work as well.  It’s like sailing in that respect.  The best skippers have done the mast.  The best pit person has done the bow.  It’s why T2PTV, as a group of sailors, works together in the media world so well.  We know how to communicate and are able to switch roles at the drop of a hat, working as a highly efficient team or going out on solo assignments.”
Sometimes the most interesting assignments can also be the most challenging, as Love found out when covering three events, in three different countries, with no lag time.  “The China Cup in Hong Kong and Shenzen, China in Mirs Bay was an event that Dobbs Davis covered a few years ago.  It was right backed up against being in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for over a week covering the sailing portion of the Pan American Games, where the regatta village was surrounded by check points and guarded by men with machine guns.  After flying from Mexico to BWI for a five hour layover and then on to Hong Kong, we had a 24 hour reprieve to overcome jetlag before reporting to the Hong Kong Yacht Club for the start of the long distance race into China… “
“Leaving from one country by boat and entering another country as strict as China required Dobbs and me to leave Hong Kong on an inflatable rib to shoot, transfer to the Race Committee boat at the border and enter the country with all of the sailors, going through a two-hour customs process on the dock.  Starting then, we edited inside a new multipurpose building obviously built with a “build it and they will come” mentality and commuted each morning and night to a hotel that was almost two hours away… When China Cup was over, I flew onto the Bitter End Pro Am at the Bitter End Yacht Club in the British Virgin Islands.  At which point I was thoroughly spent!”
Like many others, Love found her calling in the sailing industry; attributing her work ethic and desire to improve as her main drivers.  She has found success with T2P, a position she found on none other than the Sail1Design.com job board!
Love on film media and sailing, “Anyone can hold up a smart phone and snap a selfie.  Telling a story is revealing an angle, going somewhere, doing something, expressing an idea in a way no one has before or in a way that does the subject matter justice.  A video can tell a story without words.  Even a single picture can tell a story.  It just has to say something verbally, visually, or with audio alone that touches someone emotionally. With the amount of variables involved in sailing, the poetry of the weather and mother nature being a part of sailing, how sailboats look, and with what it takes to sail well and do it for your entire life, the stories are waiting around every corner.”
Indeed the stories are waiting around every corner, from theatre to Beach Ultimate in Brazil to Radial Worlds in Japan, Love has found her story at T2PTV, and you can too. “Keep your eye on the job listings section of Sail1Design.com and if you’re looking to be videographer, we are always looking for interns.  Send T2PTV a story and come and meet us.  You don’t have to have a film degree, though it is helpful, you just have to love something and be able to prove it.” –Ashley Love.