Boat launch...

[Birdman666]

Another one of those terms that means something completely different to a skydiver. GO BOATING! YEEE-HAAAAH!



I was the front float on this jump. My primary responsibility was to keep the nose of the boat from coming up. If it did, we flip... As you can see from the second photo... IT DID! And I had to... errr... ummm... use my head, and put my shoulder into it...



I've done eight of these, and you flip about half the time. The force of the wind pushing up is pretty difficult to overcome, once that nose comes up you are over and back. Too much weight in the front and you go out and OVER. So, getting it out the door without flipping is really the hard part on these.

BUT THAT TIME I DID IT!!!

 

[Birdman666]

This is one of my all time favorite skydiving photos... PERFECT BOAT LAUNCH!

 

[Birdman666]

LAUNCHED FROM 15,000 FEET; STABLE AT ABOUT 12,000 FEET...

 

[Birdman666]

FLY! FLY! FLY! YOUR BOAT...
AND HOPE YOU LAND GENTLY IN THE STREAM...
MERRILY... MERRILY... MERRILY... MERRILY...

Yeah, even the songs are a little bit different.

 

[Weezerj]

I n s a n e

 

[Birdman666]

Wait... there's more!

 

[Birdman666]

The girl in the front of this boat was laughing so hard she nearly fell out...

 

[Birdman666]

TIME TO GO, EVERYONE OUT OF THE BOAT...





At break-off time, the rear float essentially tips the boat over, by flying forward, and down while still holding on to the back end of the boat. This, of course, turns the little rubber boat into a catapult, and sends everyone in it hurling across the sky, safely away from the boat, and each other...

 

[Birdman666]

OUR WORK HERE IS DONE...



And that's what I do for fun in my spare time... when I have spare cash...

Neither of which I have had recently.

 

[Birdman666]

i n s a n e

only half right... Insanely fun!!

 

[Pinkbirdy]

OMG !!! Im speechless If you can do that you can do anything [right] It must feel wonderful [like a bird ] .Cant say Ive done anything like that . Biggest deal for me was learning to ride a motorcycle.

 

[Birdman666]

I've done a few hundred of these...

What if I told you that riding a motorcycle was WAY more dangerous than skydiving?!

I had a bike for three weeks. Had to lay it down twice due to cars changing lanes almost directly into me...

I don't do motorcycles.

I'll stick to my rubber ducky.

 

[Pinkbirdy]

I agree motorcycles are not safe

 

[JerseyWendy]

Mark, I swear, if only you could have seen my face as I was saving those. :54: :32:

Totally AWESOME!!! I admit, that looks like TONS of fun!!

You are one crazy dude. (I mean that in the nicest way possible!!!!)

 

[Birdman666]

Oddly enough, and most people will find this counter intuitive, but I find this stuff incredibly relaxing...

It's as safe or as dangerous as you make it, really. Pack them right, they open right. Open at a safe altitude, and you have plenty of time to fix it if something goes wrong...

Trash pack, open low, and swoop the landing area? Sooner or later the ground will get you. It's pretty simple really... (don't do stupid things low to the ground.)

I pretty much lost any sense of fear by the time I had my license. You can't fly scared. You tense up, you lose your ability to fly. The more relaxed you are, the easier it is...

And some of my stupidest jumps, have been the most fun...

There are things in life that you never forget. This is one of them.

I miss my old DZ.

 

[Christinenc2000]

Breathtaking. I use to want to sky dive...... got older and realized NO NO NO

Amazing pictures Mark. Still think you are a little nuts LOL Jump out of a good plane to ride in a boat with no water under it............ Yeah you are nuts LOL

Thank you for sharing

 

[GreatBlue320]

How long did the 2 divers stay in the boat before they had to abandon ship?

Great photos - amazing.

 

[Birdman666]

At that speed, from 15,000 feet, you only get about 30 seconds of free fall... til you have to break off and get serious. We broke this one off at around 5,500, so close to 10,000 feet of free fall in the boat, and then opened at 3,500... so another 2,000 feet or so of just screwing around in the sky on your own time.

There are times when time seems to move in fractions of a second intervals. This was one of those times. I remember every millisecond of this jump. Especially the part where the nose started to come up. NO! WE ARE NOT GOING TO FLIP THIS TIME! We're going to pull this one off...

 

[Birdman666]

We actually recovered the raft after this jump, and got a second jump out of it.

Two people in the raft. Four people around the raft. Four chasers.

Once we got the boat stable, the four chasers swooped in, and hung vertically from the leg straps of the four people around the outside of the boat, and turned it into a 10-way hybrid...

Needless to say, with the weight of 10 people in freefall, that little rubber boat went like a bat outta hell... unfortunately, we didn't have a camera flyer on that load, because that would have been one worth blowing up and framing.