The Bard of B.A.S.E --NickDG

[patworks 5]

Nick has a way with words, His writings and communications on the topic opened new doors, saves lives, and records life & death results. NickDG's work epitomizes the Communication Imperative: Knowledge is good; skill is fun, and that what BASE mates don’t know is deadly. I toast NickDG!

Without him and people like him, our BASE history is but dust in a wind. Emulate him. Share your story else the world is dumb and trees fall silently in our forests.

Here's a sample of Nick DG-ing:

Quote

Know Your BASE History. Nick Di Giovanni
By Nick Di Giovanni, BASE 194

“Delving fully into the history of BASE jumping is outside the scope of this web site. However, in brief, here's how the sport evolved.


A Word About Carl Boenish. Carl Boenish is known as the "Father of Modern BASE jumping." This is because he is the first to apply modern gear (ram air parachutes) and modern freefall techniques (tracking) to fixed object jumps. He is also the first to show the world through his films that fixed object jumps are not one-off stunts but jumps that are actually repeatable. Known to his family as Ronnie, Carl is 21 years of age in 1960 when he begins jumping at the DZ in Lake Elsinore, California. He becomes an Electrical Engineer working for the Hughes Corporation and in 1966 he's heavily involved in photographing the early days of RW on the West Coast.

One day in the summer of 1966 Carl hears a weird story. A story that would change the course of his life. Two skydivers from Barstow, California, Michael Pelky, an accountant, age 25 and Brian Schubert, a truck driver, age 26, decided to parachute off Yosemite's El Capitan. They jumped side by side on a Sunday afternoon at around 5:00 PM and both did decent delays but did not track away from the wall. Their round Paracommander canopies opened fine but the updrafts and swirling winds pushed them back into the face and both repeatedly banged into the wall on the way down. By the time they landed in the rocky talus below both are pretty beaten up. Pelky has numerous abrasions and a broken ankle. Schubert also had many abrasions plus a broken leg and broken foot. Both were ambulanced to a local hospital.
Carl who is already known to be drawn to wacky ideas involving parachutes is intrigued by the story and files it away in his mind.

The first mention of parachutes in written texts comes from the 12th century. Chinese acrobats of the time used small parachute like devices to retard short falls during gymnastic exhibitions. Later in Europe, between the 14th and 16th century, two groups of jumpers appeared, collectively called "The Tower Jumpers." One group experimented with crude parachutes in order to escape fires that sometimes engulfed the 300 to 700 foot high medieval towers of the day. The other group simply wanted to fly like birds and used a winged approach. Both groups generally wound up in the same heap at the base of such towers. Most experts agree there is no proof jumps like these were ever really made. However, tower jumpers are mentioned too many times in too many texts to be discounted.

During the early 19th century many stunt jumps are recorded, like Frederick Rodman Law's static line jump from the torch of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor in 1912. Law also jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge and the Bankers Trust Building on Wall Street. In 1942 a Milwaukee aircraft mechanic made a static line jump from the inside of a blimp hangar. These jumps continued with a dentist (Photo Right) who did a rather respectable cliff jump in the Italian Dolomites in the mid 1950s.

After the two Californian jumpers did El Capitan in 1966, Rick Sylvester skis off it for a movie stunt and parachutes into the valley below in 1973. In 1975 Owen Quinn leaps from the World Trade Center Building in New York City and Ron Boyles jumps from the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado.
>>>>> -- - - - [SNIP] see full article >>>>>> https://www.apexbase.com/index.php?route=news/article&catid=3&news_id=1 <<<<
That same year, 1975, Carl Boenish goes to Yosemite National Park to film some hang gliding footage. It is a pivotal event in the history of BASE jumping.

Carl makes the first serious suggestion to Rich Picarilli in early 1978 saying, “Let's go jump El Capitan.”

>>>>> -- - - - [SNIP] see full article >>>>>>
Carl makes his first recon mission to the top of El Capitan in the winter of '78. “I got halfway up the trail,” Carl said later, “but there's so much snow I wound up spending the night [on the trail] and coming back down the next morning.” The next trip he makes it to the top and when lowered over the rounded brow of El Capitan on a rope he yells back up, "Eureka, we can jump here!"

>>>>> -- - - - [SNIP] see full article >>>>>> In 1984 Carl Boenish is killed jumping a cliff in Norway. As the jump is not seen by anyone the consensus is Carl hit a small rock outcropping in freefall. However, Carl did live long enough to see the sport of fixed object jumping take root. In 1981 he began to see a pattern in the types of jumps people were making and with dictionary in hand set out to find a name for what everyone was begining to realize is an entirely new sport.

>>>>> -- - - - [SNIP] see full article >>>>>>
In 1981 Carl begins issuing sequential BASE numbers for anyone who makes at least one jump in each of the four object categories. The first number issued went to Texas jumper Phil Smith who will forever be BASE Number 1. Carl himself later receives BASE #4 and his wife Jean Boenish BASE #3. BASE numbers nowadays are approaching 800. Carl is also the first to publish a magazine, call BASE Magazine, to spread the word on safety. And so it began . . .”

By NickDG; 2003 Apex BASE. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ also, Di Giovanni, Nick. "World BASE Fatality List." http://hometown.aol.com/base194/myhomepage/base_fatality_list

[piisfish 135]

a great writer writing about a great person's great writing. Me loves that

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[airtwardo 6]

piisfish

a great writer writing about a great person's great writing. Me loves that

ME 2 !

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[fastphil 0]

The early guys were visionaries, not content to take the established path, and Carl the prophet. He was a living phenomenon.

[airtwardo 6]

fastphil

The early guys were visionaries, not content to take the established path, and Carl the prophet. He was a living phenomenon.

I see 'em more as Pioneers...

My first B.A.S.E. jumps were on standard skydiving gear of the time...getting a larger pilot chute and Zoo toggles meant you were really INTO it.

The only 'problem' with being a Pioneer...ya tend to take a whole lotta arrows!


Personally - having watched it grow from the 70's...I can't even imagine what the NEXT 40 years will bring!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[tonybrogdon 0]

Thanks Pat for passing on Nick's writing. Good Information.

Tony Brogdon
D-12855

[jumpwally 0]

Anyone seen or heard from Nick recently,,,i enjoyed his posts. Ever since he finished the bike he seems to have vanished.....

smile, be nice, enjoy life
FB # - 1083

[airtwardo 6]

He's been working on the house...new driveway last month...now a fence along side the property - which from what I hear, he measured wrong!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[patworks 5]

Quote

The only 'problem' with being a Pioneer...ya tend to take a whole lotta arrows!

[patworks 5]

Praises of NickDG from Sweden:

Quote

"Fixed object sport parachuting, unregulated and partly illegal, would seem a difficult subject matter to explore other than for certain objects in certain areas, such as the Norwegian study cited above. However, astonishingly and highly commendable, American BASE jumping pioneer Nick Di Giovanni has been collecting data on fatalities in all types of fixed object parachuting since 1985 on a worldwide basis. The data collection has been performed through personal
communication with witnesses, friends and relatives, and he has made the information available to the BASE jumping community over the Internet on the World BASE fatality list (http://www.splatula.com/bfl). Several cases are documented by eyewitness reports." (Anton Westman, A skydiving physician, Umeå University)

Methinks (agrees) that "a prophet has no honor in his own country."

Arrows, yes.

Pat Works nee Madden Travis Works, Jr .B1575, C1798, D1813, Star Crest Solo#1, USPA#189,