Boating Safety on the Bay
Ports Victoria
How do you help a small boat understand just how big a big ship really is?
Port Phillip Bay is shared by recreational boaters, fishers, jet skis, paddlers — and some very, very large ships.
The problem is that from water level, a commercial vessel can look deceptively distant and slow. It isn't.
For Victorian Ports Melbourne, Clipo — then Singing Bowl Media — created a series of boating safety films designed to make the risks of sharing Port Phillip Bay with commercial shipping easier to see, understand and remember.
Steer Clear focused on the interaction between recreational vessels and large ships, using cinematic footage, drone imagery, maps and animation to explain shipping channels, visibility, stopping distances and the Transit Only Zone.
A second film, Don't Rock the Boat, broadened the safety message, combining real boating imagery with simple animated sequences to communicate the unpredictable impact of waves, wake and changing conditions on smaller craft.
The goal wasn't to make people afraid of the Bay.
It was to help them enjoy it safely.
At a glance
2 boating safety films
Port Phillip Bay
Recreational boating + commercial shipping
Live action + drone cinematography
Animation + maps + explainer graphics
Safety education + behaviour change
Web / Campaign / Community Education
The Client Brief
Port Phillip Bay is both a recreational playground and a working commercial waterway.
Large container ships, car carriers and cruise vessels travel through the same waters used by thousands of smaller recreational craft.
For Victorian Ports Melbourne, the challenge was to communicate a safety issue that can be difficult to appreciate until you're actually on the water.
Large ships can't stop or manoeuvre like a small boat.
People operating recreational vessels can dramatically underestimate their speed.
And from the bridge of a commercial vessel, a small fishing boat, kayak or jet ski can be extremely difficult to see.
The films needed to explain those risks clearly without becoming overly technical or alarmist.
Most importantly, they needed to influence what people actually did once they were back on the water.
Our Approach
Show the difference in scale.
This was a story where pictures could explain something far more effectively than words.
So we made scale a major part of the visual language.
Aerial footage shows enormous commercial ships moving through Port Phillip Bay.
Smaller recreational vessels give us an immediate point of comparison.
Views from around the ships help audiences understand sightlines and visibility.
Maps make the shipping channels and Transit Only Zone understandable.
And animation allows us to simplify ideas that would be almost impossible to demonstrate safely in real life.
The result combines the credibility of real-world footage with the clarity of an explainer.
The Outcome
The work became part of a broader boating-safety campaign encouraging recreational users to share Port Phillip Bay safely with commercial shipping.
And the central idea has proved remarkably enduring.
Years after these films were created, the safety message remains essentially unchanged:
Keep clear of big ships.
Sometimes good public communication isn't about finding a complicated new message.
It's about finding a clear way to make an important one stick.
Steer Clear
Just because you can see them doesn't mean they can see you.
That simple idea sits at the heart of Steer Clear.
The film explains why recreational vessels need to give large commercial ships plenty of room, while also helping boaters understand the geography of Port Phillip Bay.
Rather than present the Transit Only Zone as a complicated maritime regulation, animated maps show where it sits and how recreational vessels should behave around it.
The live-action footage then brings those rules back into the real world.
Ships fill the frame. Small craft almost disappear beside them. Drone imagery reveals the shipping channels from above. Animation demonstrates vessel movements and sightlines.
Together, those elements turn an abstract safety instruction — keep clear of big ships — into something audiences can actually visualise.
Don't Rock the Boat
Safety isn't only about where you are. It's about what the water is doing around you.
The second film takes a more general look at boating safety.
Again, live-action footage is combined with simple graphic animation, this time helping explain how conditions, waves and the movement of larger vessels can affect smaller craft.
The visual style keeps the information accessible.
Instead of lengthy technical explanations, short messages and clean animation break the advice into simple ideas:
Prepare.
Be aware.
Take care.
When animation earns its place
We don't add animation simply because animation looks good.
On projects like this, it solves a genuine communication problem.
You can't safely position a small recreational boat beside a commercial ship simply to demonstrate what not to do.
You can't easily photograph an invisible sightline from the bridge.
And a shipping zone described verbally is considerably harder to understand than one drawn on a map.
Animation lets us strip away everything unnecessary and show the important idea in seconds.
The live-action footage provides reality.
The graphics provide clarity.
Making complex rules memorable
Boating regulations can involve navigation zones, vessel movements, visibility, right-of-way rules and safety requirements.
Our job wasn't to make audiences remember every piece of maritime terminology.
It was to make the key behaviours stick.
Give big ships space.
Don't assume they can see you.
Stay out of restricted areas.
Be prepared for changing conditions.
The films use scale, movement, repetition and visual explanation to turn those messages into something people can recall when it matters.