Round 2 “Where’s the Beach” began in style with excellent weather on Friday the 15th August. Otherwise known as the development boogie, this year the event was extended to 3 days. The idea of jumping on Friday was to provide mentorship to new jumpers. Dan The Man, Douggs, Lee and Simon took small groups of 4 or 5 BASE jumpers each and spent time with them examining packing techniques and the actual jumps. Each of the jumpers started off with two Pilot Chute Assists each closely watched and videoed by their instructors. Most jumpers completed a minimum of 4 jumps throughout the day with some doing many more than that. Jumping finished around 5pm and in that time Al managed to complete a staggering 11 jumps all packed.
Come Saturday and it was game on. UK Pro BASE director, Max gave the competition briefing describing the differences between this competition and Bedford. Firstly scores were given based on the first point on contact with the ground and stopping outside the 6 meter mark did not this time give you a zap for that jump. Secondly, rounds did not have to be completed before competitors could go on to the next round. This allowed everyone to jump at their own pace.
BASE jumpers from Australia, Belgium, Holland, New Zealand and the USA came to compete alongside the British. Their experience ranged from 25 up to a very high 1400 BASE jumps. Unfortunately the weather on Saturday was extremely windy. Despite a brand new, higher (292ft), stronger crane, the winds were over the limits after just a single test lift. That left a whole day of chit-chat, object location and ‘no-shit, there I was’ stories. Many of the development jumpers asked for a seminar on Static-Line and PCA technique. Simon and Douggs stepped forward to impart as much knowledge as they could discussing knots, bridle management, use of electrical tape, object evaluation, use of strops and backup systems.
Saturday night at the bonfire must have been good, because despite an early 8am start many of the competitors were absent from the first lifts. The weather was shining again and it was all systems go. John managed to take an early lead scoring 7 points. This means he landed within 50cm of the dead centre. Right behind him was Douggs, Al and Gary all scoring a 5. Already it was looking like many jumpers had learned from their earlier mistakes at Bedford and were putting good scores on the board. Whether or not this was because of the larger landing area and the absence of festival watchers we will never know.
Pete Mac took a 5 in round 2 with Dan The Man and Al closely following with scores of 3 each. Surprisingly, it was not until round 3 when Johan Vervoort put his first score of 7 on the board. The race was hotting up between Simon, Douggs and Matt also who were vying for 3rd place. By now the weather was starting to turn nasty. The clouds were coming in, the winds increasing and a few spots of rain appeared. Round 4 was hot in progress and because of the conditions few jumpers were able to hit the mark. Douggs took the only dead centre of the competition taking a clear lead of 3 over nearest rival Al.
After some conferring amongst the judges, it was decided to call the accuracy competition on 4 rounds and hand out the prizes:
The first event of the series was complete. Several hundred jumps were completed and the awards were as follows:
- 1st prize – Douggs (Australia) Phoenix Fly Tracking Jacket + t-shirt
- 2nd prize – Al (UK) Asylum Designs AV pilot chute + stash bag + t-shirt
- 3rd prize – Simon (UK) Morpheus Technologies AV pilot chute +t-shirt
Here are the scores in detail:
Many thanks goes to our sponsors NMT Cranes, Go Fast Sports, Adrenaline, Apex BASE, Asylum Designs, Morpheus and Phoenix Fly. In a few weeks time, the final and most exciting event off the series will be hosted at Swaffham. Who will win the final round and the overall prize jumping off 2 gigantic wind turbines? View the photo gallery. |
 1st Place
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