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KL Tower International BASE Jump Merdeka Circuit 2008 is going great so far with jumping completed off the two buildings in Borneo.

I decided to join the event at the last minute after I heard things did not work out between Menara KL and their new technical team. It is just several Malaysian jumpers, a couple of Indonesian jumpers and me on the tour. It has been a great opportunity for the Malaysian and Indonesian BASE jumping teams to hone their skills.

The opening ceremony at Menara Pelita in Sarawak started with all BASE jumpers being transported to the building on motor bikes followed by a display jump in front of a large crowd. The weather stayed really good nearly all day so everyone got to do a reasonable amount of jumps.

Next it was onto Kota Kinabula in Sabah. I travelled there a couple of days early so I could climb Mount Kinabalu which is 4095 meters high. That was an interesting 2 day hike reaching the peak for sunrise.
Our practice session jumping off Menara Tun Mustapha was limited by strong winds but I will say was quite exciting. The next day was the opening ceremony at Menara Tun Mustapha. We walked out of our hotel in the morning, across the road and onto some boats. As part of opening ceremony we were transported to the building on parasails. It was a spectacular view being at the back of a formation of eight parasails travelling across the harbour to our building with also the backdrop of Mount Kinabalu behind it. What an interesting way to get to a BASE jump. On arrival we were greeted by a huge crow dressed in traditional costume. Then we were led to the top of the building where we performed a nice display jump for the Chief Minister of Sabah. The weather stayed absolutely perfect all day for the nicest full day of jumping we have ever had there. We have just completed our final day of jumping at Sabah. There was a bit of wind during the middle of the day and it started raining a bit at the end of the day but still a nice day of jumping.

I have approached the event in a different manner this year. For me it is a nice relaxing holiday with no responsibilities to organise everything and everyone. I have even tried jumping at more relaxing pace but have still completed 41 building jumps so far and also one cliff jump. Four more buildings to go.

I look forward to seeing those that are coming to KL Tower.


Gary

That was a very politically correct and very telling statement. How many jumps do the Malaysian and Indonesian jumpers have?

I just arrived back from a day of relaxing on a small island off the Kota Kinabalu coast. I did a bit of snorkelling amongst the beautiful coral and many colourful tropical fish. It is a tough life here in Malaysia.
Dinner at the local head hunter tribe tonight is a bit of a concern. I hope I am not the main course.




The Malaysian and Indonesian jumpers would now have ranging from about 10 to 250 BASE jumps each.
Although some may have minimal BASE jumping experience they are all certainly putting me to shame with their precision canopy control and advanced accuracy skills. I have no doubt they would be hot contenders to take out some of the BASE jumping competitions we are seeing around the world.


Gary

Sounds like a good time. If you make it through the head hunter meating, let us know what the main course was.

---

"10 to 250 BASE jumps each. "

That's oddly shy of the minimum jump number originally set. If the jumpers were say... from the US, my initial guess is that they would have been denied admittance to the full tour.


Some day I'll return to Kota Kinabalu

Our visit to the Monsopiad Head Hunter Warrior Tribe was an interesting one. On arrive we had a welcoming drink of rice wine alo relax us. Then we were shown to the house of skulls where they stored many human skulls. Next we were taken to their sacred ritual stone where freshly cut heads used to be hung out to dry. Fortunately the head hunting practice ceased in Malaysia 100 years ago.
Our dinner there, hosted by Sabah Tourism, was more traditional Malaysian food so I was relieved that the only foreign jumper was not the main course. We got to practice some blow pipe skills and also spent the night learning traditional Malaysian dances with the most beautiful tribal women.


I believe Menara KL’s new technical team set a minimum jump number requirement of 500 BASE jumps for the tour. This would have instantly excluded most jumpers that had been on the tour before along with most jumpers interested in going to the event. While that is a nice comfortable number, I believe that jump numbers is only a starting point for assessing a BASE jumper for such an event. There are some jumpers with just over 100 jumps that I would be very comfortable with one the tour and others with over 800 BASE jumps that I would just not invite. While skill is an absolute must, I rank attitude as an even more important factor.

In the context of having zero jumpers for the tour, I was surprised to see Menara KL’s technical team of jumpers telling Menara KL that they had to exclude many BASE jumpers with over 300 BASE jumps from the tour because they did not meet their 500 jump limit that they had set. I don’t know what the quality of the applicants was but it seemed that the technical team was refusing to invite anyone on the tour other then themselves. No one seemed good enough it their eyes. I guess in the end they decided they were not good enough themselves and did not show up for the event.

While I would be horrified having jumpers at the event with the lack of BASE jumping experience that some of the Malaysian and Indonesian jumpers have, after seeing their abilities and the briefings and debriefings they are given, I am quite comfortable with them jumping there. They would have been handpicked by event technical director Aziz Ahmad who has strong knowledge of their canopy skills. The locals do get special treatment and privileges like that. When we are welcomed into their country and their buildings I feel an obligation to help them out as much as possible. If we look after them, they go out of their way to look after us.



You would be welcome back to Kota Kinabalu and Malaysia anytime. It was very disappointing for the Sabah government after going to such a huge effort to welcome us to their state and put on a huge show, that only one international jumper showed up. This is the same for every state we vist.

I think upper management of Menara KL have really learnt many lessons from the mistakes they made over the last year. My relationship with Menara KL and the state governments is now stronger than ever and I will be working closely with them to produce a very worthwhile event for BASE jumpers next year.

On arrival at the event Menara KL had one message they wanted me to send to jumpers. Those that want to and jump off their buildings are most welcome to as long as they come with a passion for jumping. Those that come with other agendas please stay away.
With the relaxed Malaysian attitude and the noticeable absents of foreign jumpers with political agendas it has been the most pleasant trip so far. While we have only ever had one or two problematic jumpers at the event, that is all it takes to bring it down.


Gary

When I organized the first jumps from Petronas on New Years 2000-2001, we knew we had gotten over the primary approval hump when the Petronas people asked: "How many Malyasian jumpers will be on the jump?"

We told them "several" even though there were only a couple of Malaysians who had ever made even one BASE jump (the previous year with Martin Dumas at KL Tower). At the time, Aziz was Malaysia's most experienced BASE jumper - he had four.

We ended up with two Malaysians, Aziz and another, who had no BASE jumps, but who, as Gary alluded to, was exceptional in his canopy control and general skills, had more than 1,500 total jumps, and was himself an instructor, and an excellent CReWdog.

So Cliff Ryder and Crazy Ed put him through a quick BASE ground school the night before the world record New Year's Eve jump, and I jumpmastered him from the gondola. We decided to send him off handheld, so I prepped his pilot chute and put it in his hand, and off he went. On the other gondola, Dennis McGlynn coached Aziz.

Both performed flawlessly, and my guy (whose name I think was Ismael) made his first BASE jump from the world's tallest building. Pretty cool.

The next night, New Year's Eve, we did one dress rehearsal jump. First, all the guys on the two lower levels of each building went, then the four of us went from the gondolas.

Five minutes before we jumped, I knew Ismael was in a good head space... there he was, ready to make his second BASE jump from the world's tallest building, and there were already 100,000 people watching below, and he turns to me and says, "So what happened in the presidential election? It seems to me that Gore won."

"Dude is definitely relaxed," I thought to myself, then explained to him about vote totals and the Electoral College and that, in the case of Florida, the Democrats tried to change the election rules after the fact and (as was later confirmed) Bush won the state anyway.

Then we get the two-minute call and get ready and go. He does another flawless jump.

The real deal ended the same way, just with 250,000 people and the prime minister watching.

The thing about Malaysian jumpers is that their jumping "culture" is about 25 years behind the US and most Euro countries - and I mean that in a good way, because, unlike "modern" jumpers, Malaysians are almost to a man very old school about learning how to fly and land their parachutes like accuracy competitors, not yahoo weekenders.

Consequently, a lot of them with very few BASE jumps are technically far superior to a lot of jumpers who have much higher jump totals.

On top of that, they LISTEN. They do not think they know everything, and so they are very coachable.

Finally, as Gary pointed out, it's their country and their buildings and that definitely counts for something. We ALL owe the Malaysian people a huge - huge - debt of gratitude for the incredible open-mindedness toward and appreciation for our sport that they demonstrated in opening up so many of their buildings to us. The least we can do is help their own people enojoy those buildings too.

Malaysia is literally the world's pioneer in opening up large buildings to jumpers on a routine basis. Without the example their leaders set (to include the former prime minister, Mahathir), we would not be enjoying all of the successes we've had in recent years in other countries, to include the ridiculously lawsuit-happy US of A.

And check out the bottom line: How many low-time Malaysian BASE jumpers get hurt at these events?

Congrats to you again, Gary, for keeping the fire burning. You saw the train wreck coming and made plans to clean up the mess - and from your account so far, it seems as if it's all working out okay anyway.

Good luck to you and your "crew" for the rest of the event, and thank you again Malaysia. You rock!

robin heid
base 44

For crying out loud, people... stop the inuendos and personal drama crying, and look at this year's event for what it really is (and is not). The Menara KL Tour has gotten inside all the bigwigs' heads in Malaysia and they're using jumpers as puppets for their "charities", publicity stunts, and corporate sponsorship. I'm OK with all the dog-and-pony show as long as they continue to welcome us to their rooftops with such open arms and hospitality. 2005, 2006, and 2007 were awesome events and I couldn't wait for 2008.
Now shut up with the stupid whining about the "new technical team"... that's just a stupid personal hatchet that has never been buried. Deal with it.

The real reason I (and everyone else in the world) didn't show up to this year's event is the unrealistic jumping schedule stretched out over 30 days with full financial burden placed on the jumpers.

Here is an excerpt from an email I sent to the PR & Events Department who published this year's schedule.
Quote: "I have also heard a rumor that the full tour is 29 days days long but only 9-10 days of jumping!!!!!! NO WAY! That means you are expecting basejumpers to pay for 18-19 days of NON-JUMPING! That is terrible. We are coming from all around the world paying between $4000 to $5000 each including airfare, and you expect us to not jump for 18-19 days???? Who came up with that crazy idea? You are inviting basejumpers, not tourists! I would rather go to Norway, France, Italy, or Switzerland for 29 days where I can jump every single day!" End of quote.

Here is the reply from the official PR & Events Department:

"...For the full tour you'll jump for 12 days, and a long gap (17 days) is we include with the tour activities which is we have good response from State Government and that's why most of the event is during on weekend as we get a support from the government. By the way, we really understand that all the cost for jumping is from your account and KL Tower are trying to minimize and subsidies your expenses during your stay at Malaysia (for 17 days- long gap)by get a sponsor from the govenment. We are promising but we are trying my level best to make sure all the jumpers is taken care by us.

We hope that you will joint us for this year event as we promise you that the event will be an exciting event for this year. Appreciate if you could bring more jumpers to joint this prestious event.

Please do not hesitate to contact me and I would be delighted to assist you.

Regards,
Sofia Abdul Majid
Public Relations & Event Department"
End of Quote

Obviously, Menara KL thought we would settle for their unrealistic jumping schedule and complete lack of financial support... the turnout proves otherwise.

If Jojo, Amanda, and Stephen chose not to attend the event as the "new technical team", good for them. If I was in their shoes, I wouldn't pay for this year's event either.

Call a spade a spade... enjoy the tour.

Richard

So what was the official jumper count?

On the tour there is me, 2 Indonesians and 8 Malaysian jumpers. I think a couple more jumpers are joining in Penang.

For KL Tower they have about 35 foreign jumpers.

Plenty of slots left for anyone interested.

If they can pay my plane flight, I am in!

ADDED: Why the decrease in jumpers? What Is Telcom Malaysia's thoughts if you know

did some one bring up airfare?... if so i am remarkably free to go too. [crossing fingers]