I'm heading off in a week to a remote location where I will be working primarily on rivers where the only location to takeoff or land will be from a small narrow boat.
I very much doubt there will be room to take-off or land from them (if there is that will of course be the choice) but otherwise, my only choice is to hand launch.

Now I've looked around and seen a number of things about taking off from boats as well as hand launch/catches, but many of the posts are very outdated.

The main things I'd like to know are:

- Do you have any tips for hand launching and catching?
- I'm presuming I should deffinitely have the VPS turned off but is there any other settings I should change specifically for launching on boats and flying over water?
- Some people have mentioned that because you are constantly moving during takeoff you should launch in atti mode, is this necesary these days or has a firmware update meant you can take off in GPS mode despite the platform it's on moving?

Thanks

Always take off and land "tail in" catching the battery from underneath with gear up. Whilst holding the bird still above your head, pull back on the left stick to lower the gear. There is a lot of talk about switching of VPS when flying above water, personally,  I have more than 400 flights over open water with VPS on and have zero issues. Just be aware that the height of the water may be constantly changing so when flying low, make sure you are not in it. I have never had switch to ATTI to take off and if hand launching this should not be a problem.
Good luck and keep us posted.

Mark G.