The Bedford River Festival 2008 saw the opening of the 'Whose The Daddy' series with 25 BASE jumpers competing against each other to win some serious prizes. The weather forecast was mixed with Sunday being the better day. No one expected to get much jumping done on the Saturday, yet 21 lifts were completed with 2 practice rounds and 2 rounds of competition completed.
Because of the high winds on Saturday, everyone did PCA's. Klaus of Germany was on hand to give plenty of accuracy competition advice. It helps when you are a National and World Champion! Even though the winds were high, several jumpers made the 6 meter target. The scoring system was designed against 4 rings:
- 10 points - 20cm
- 7 points - 50cm
- 5 points - 2m
- 3 points - 4m
- 1 point - 6m
The rules were set that you could not finish your landing outside the outer ring or fall over. Consequently, many competitors could have scored more points.
So with round 1 beginning scoring, the winds had died a little making everyones approaches slightly different. It was helpful that there were so many Go-Fast flags around the perimeter fence to give speed and direction. Only 4 competitors managed to hit the pad with Klaus coming in first place with a score of 5. Right behind him was Craig taking a solid 3 points.
Jumping finished around 6pm and the crane operator looked tired. It was time to relax and drink some beverages. All the jumpers headed in to the centre of festival where there were lots of food tents, beer tents and live music. It all culminated in a big fireworks display.
The weather on Sunday was as promised fantastic. Almost no winds, small clouds interlaced with lots of blue skies. Of course round 3 caught many people out with the accuracy being overshot regularly. It was at this point that Johan and Douggs started to make their mark, both scoring 7 and 1 points respectively. This would carry on to round 4 with 10 points and 5 points. It seems some jumpers like the nil winds. Throughout this Klaus consolidated his easy win with 2 dead centres and a 5.
The first event of the series was complete. Several hundred jumps were completed and the awards were as follows:
- 1st prize - Klaus (Germany) Phoenix Fly Tracking Pants + t-shirt
- 2nd prize - Johan (Belgium) Asylum Designs AV pilot chute + stash bag + t-shirt
- 3rd prize - Chris (Austrailia) Morpheus Technologies AV pilot chute +t-shirt
Here are the scores in detail:
| P1 | P2 | R1 | R2 | R3 | R4 | Total | Position | |
| 1. Chris M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 11 | 3th |
| 2. Jules D | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 3. Niall H | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 4. Kev S | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 5. Simon B | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | =8th |
| 6. Gary C | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 7. Al G | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 6th |
| 8. Richard L | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | =8th |
| 9. Jim W | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 | =4th |
| 10. Pete M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | DNC |
| 11. Dan W | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 12. Rich P | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | DNC |
| 13. Craig P | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | =8th |
| 14. Roger H | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 15. Johan V | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 12 | 2nd |
| 16. Lee C | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | |
| 17. Grant R | 0 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 7th |
| 18. Jules M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 19. Fully S | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 6 | =4th |
| 20. Klaus R | 7 | 10 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 30 | 1st |
| 21. Steve M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 22. Mark S | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 23. Will W | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 24. Mark C | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | DNF |
| 25. Ken G | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 26. Ken T | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 27. Dave M | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | DNF |
| 28. Max H | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | DNC |
DNC - Did Not Compete in competition.
DNF - Did Not Finish all the rounds.
View the photo gallery and an article in Cranes Today Magazine which features our sponsors, NMT cranes.