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Home: news: Events: Good Vibes 3 in Motueka - New Zealand
Good Vibes 3 in Motueka - New ZealandPosted Thu Aug 19 2004By Brett Parker Despite a rotten weather forecast for the entire country over the boogie period, Motueka was - once more - sunny and settled, suitable for stacks of skydiving. This year a total of 86 jumpers registered for the boogie at 'Skydive Abel Tasman', coming from all over NZ and as far afield as Australia, Europe, UK and the USA, a huge increase over the first event held in 2002. This year the event was held from 12 - 15 August. Any jumpers who were scared off attending by the forecast (of all things!) should hereby rightfully kick themselves. The main attractions were the two eight-place Fletcher turbines, SAT's DJE and NZS visiting from Christchurch, along with the opportunity for freefly and 2, 4 and 8-way RW coaching during the training camp subsidised by the NZ Parachute Federation. There was great interest in this instruction and the available slots were all pre-booked well before the event. Thanks are due to all the coaches and camera-flyers who gave their time to supporting sport jumping during the camp, particularly to Eric Hensheimer of the US Army Golden Knights who came down under to help out. Eric also put on a very interesting video seminar on RW blocks flown by the Golden Knights, well attended by many jumpers at the boogie. Pete Maher lead a successful 8-way camp which culminated in a two-plane formation 16-way on Sunday. The service by SAT staff was superb as always, registration included a fine t-shirt along with chances to win a wide selection of kit in the prize draw sponsored by Skydivezone. Manifesting was well-organised, James handling the thankless and stressful job of juggling jump-slots with deadpan aplomb. Plenty of free Mac's beer after the turbines were shut-down, and free BBQs on Friday and Saturday - mention must also be made of Rod Miller's exceptional generosity in shouting the bar all Saturday night! (Rod then provided an example of good karma in action by consequently winning a pro-dytter in the prize draw, and the 'Captain Good Vibes' award of a discounted Aerodyne rig and a Cookie Composite Helmet). As stated, the weather (mostly) co-operated, with some short weather holds on Friday and Saturday. There was heavy clag on Sunday morning, but such was the state of many hangovers that this was not a major problem, and from noon the blue skies rolled in again. A total of 775 jumps were made from 97 sports loads from the two jumpships, and only two reserve rides and a couple of off-DZ landings occurred (always an interesting exercise in canopy control in Motueka). No injuries, no close-calls. Civil Aviation Authority staff were present on Friday to check things out, hopefully the professional operation evident will help them to think kindly of skydiving in future. TV3 also came out and produced a really positive segment on the boogie for their sports news on Saturday night, good interviews with Stu, Tim and Eric and plenty of free-fall footage to excite the viewing populace. Just the kind of positive PR the sport can always use, and there were cheers from all the assembled jumpers watching it at being collectively described as "New Zealand's top skydivers"! …and some final mentions... - Claz and Mike excited general envy with the video of the great times they had at the hot and exotic Ecuador Boogie, with a C130 Hercules as the boogie jumpship... - Aaron and the catering team baked a chocolate cake in the shape of a canopy to celebrate the end of the boogie, went down very well by all assembled - Now looking forward to the scrambles camp at Dannevirke after Xmas, including chopper loads and sponsorship by Tui Brewery! More articles in this category:
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