Basejumper.com - archive

I was watching one of those "Real TV" or "What were they thinking" type TV shows the other day, and they showed a guy doing what looked like a 200 footer off a cliff over a river. The guy takes a few second delay, pitches, and his pilot chute just flips around like a dishrag on the end of the bridle.

Finally his PC gets a gulp of air, and deploys him - the guy hits the water HARD (around line stretch), under a multi-toned blue ram air, and mangles his legs and back. He recovered, and still jumps. Does anyone know the circumstances surrounding this near-lethal PC in tow? Do you BASE guys have special pieces or techniques to avoid this?

200ft - few seconds delay - mmmmm.....

Lucky him there were water then

Yo !

This sounds like WO accident many years ago...

bsbd!

Yuri.

WO was jumping a round. The footage of his accident is available at REI, and many other outdoors stores. It's on a climbing video called Masters of Stone (I think it's on volume 2).

But other than that, it does sound a lot like that accident.

I saw that show as well. Some of the guys were jumping rounds. He did hit pretty hard. Do you BASE guys jump with rounds very often?

By the way the show was 'what were they thinking'...
...I think.

I have made about 50 jumps on rounds. I own three of them, and find that they are great for "normal" (i.e. no low pulls, 1-3 second delays) jumps over deep water. They dry and pack much faster than squares, making them ideal for repeated "easy" jumps.

It should be noted, however, that a relatively disproportionate number of BASE accidents (including my own near fatal accident) in recent years have been on rounds. There are several contributing factors including: (a) advancement of round technnology--it's basically state of the art 1970's parachuting gear, (b) tendency to pull lower, because you don't need to fly anywhere to land, (c) inconsistency of round openings--they can snivel a lot more than squares, and (d) lack of current round knowledge--there are very few civilians who are current on the regular use of rounds.

Rounds are kind of a novelty. There are many people who have made a BASE jump on one, but very few who have made many. While there are several people who have relatively advanced knowledge on the subject (including some gear manufacturers), the total number of real experts on rounds in BASE is very, very small (I can think of one--thank god he made a packing video).

If you want to use a round for BASE, be very, very careful, and don't push the edge. I've seen one person who has successfully, and repeatedly done so with rounds, and, as we all know, Karin's boyfriend defies the normal laws of physics that apply to us mere mortals.

Hey Tom, do you know if this video is available anywhere?



Yeah... and so does Karin (in different ways ;-)