The second FS Nationals weekend in the UK completed the 8-way competition, with 12 teams across 3 categories. Inclement weather meant zero jumps on Saturday, 2-3 on Sunday and most of the meet jumps taking place on Monday 15 September.
Sadly this meant 5 of the 12 teams had to withdraw, through a lack of registered alternates. This was a shame as it meant the highest attended 8-way Nationals for a decade suddenly became half the size. Part of the problem was due to the later date of the Nationals, normally in August but in September this year due to the World Meet in August. (fewer hours of daylight and harder for academics on Monday) The UK Nationals were called on 8 rounds of senior and 6 rounds of intermediate.
The scores and positions are available on InTime. We interviewed the teams to give a snapshot of each entry.
Senior 8-way
Gold – Microclim8
Our British National 8-way team, fresh back from fourth place at the World Meet in Prostejov, skydived hard and fast, matching their drinking style. Despite a not very friendly draw they put up a great performance with a 12.6 average, a few outrageous swing moves, and some super cool jumps. This team is a descendent of VNE, whose legacy seems to go on forever. These guys have has single-handedly (eighteen-handedly?) grown and harvested 8-way in the UK, by giving non-stop coaching to any and every up and coming team. Nearest rivals Brit Chicks have never yet been close to beating them, such is their mastery of this discipline. Microclim8 are constantly re-inventing themselves, and have enjoyed needing to train again the last few years to keep the chicks at bay and the gold medals in play. Congratulations guys and thanks for all you’ve done for the 8-way scene in the UK.
Silver – Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds, with Shell Meakins and Paul Seymour put up a great performance, taking a well deserved silver with an impressive 9.6 average. They had aimed to do about 70 training jumps but shoddy weather cut them savagely down to 14. The team’s been together 3 or 4 years but with lots of line-up changes. They’ve done so well at the comp despite their limited training that there have been some suggestions of keeping together and training next year. It’s surprisingly hard to do a double point skydive in 8-way; Thunderbirds put up more scores in double than single figures and were bordering on a 10 average. Team members have a lot of experience but not much time in the air together, this line-up could go far.
Bronze – Awkward Turtles
The entertainingly named Georgie and Johnny’s Awkward Turtles returned to the 8-way Nationals with a similar line-up as last year, bringing cameraman Brian Knight into the formation, and adding James Woods. They had intended to do a training weekend at Sibson but the weather was pants so they went team drinking instead, good practise for the amount of alcohol they consumed at Nationals! Pooky was super helpful with coaching and tips. Turtles members enjoyed the challenge of 8-way but found engineering and remembering the dives really hard, unless it looked like 4-way. Their biggest surprise was large backing-up moves. They managed some nice launches and had great success with difficult formations, scoring a 6.3 average, very impressive for an amateur scratch team.
## Brit Chicks – withdrew
Brit Chicks had a year off training, as half their line-up, Kaizen, have thrown all their money at 4-way. They had 3 new team members from last year’s line-up and, without a single training jump, put up good scores until Monday when two people had to leave, so they withdrew from the competition. It was truly a shame as Thunderbirds were skydiving so well; this could have been a close and hard-fought battle for silver. Perhaps it would be possible to restore the option of allowing 2 alternates for senior 8-way teams; two are allowed in intermediate and rookie. Had 2 alternates been permitted then the Chicks and Cowabunga would have been able to complete the competition.
Snow White and the Seven Cowabunga – withdrew
Where does the name come from? BPA Editor Liz Ashley is Snow White, and the dwarfs are: Doc (Dave), Sleepy (Henry), Grumpy (Pench), Happy (Blyth), Dopey (Ant), Sneezy (Taff), Bashful (Billy) & Cocky (Jez); the ensemble is complete with Wicked Witch, the Packing Bitch (Kate French). The team was a last minute thing put together by Dave West, the man who put the Cowabunga’ into the team. He famously enlivened a BCPA party with his drunken stunt of stripping naked and diving into a jacuzzi of students, shouting “Cowabunga!” (expletive deleted) Once they get together they are pretty good but their dives always started with a funnel. Their goal was to ‘launch the damned exit’… but they didn’t achieve this as 2 of the team had to leave on Sunday night, so this team also withdrew.
Intermediate 8-way
Gold – Emanon
Emanon couldn’t think of a team name so adopted no name backwards, picking up an unfortunate nickname… Martin Soulsby initially put the team together, and then Pam Snow and Dave Stephens have been doing a lot of organising. It’s a lovely range of experiences and personalities. Before the Nationals they only managed 2 jumps together in 2 training weekends, but did tunnel instead. An hour and a half at Bodyflight with Martin gave them a look at the pool, an idea of their slot, and was enough for a gold medal, well done guys!
Silver – Unleash the Kraken
The team name was recycled from last year, with captain Rich Cotton putting the team of Hib jumpers together. Mixed experience levels. This scratch team always had smiles in their pockets and were ‘putting the fun in funnel’. They seriously wanted to fly an 8-way exit intact and were bribed with alcohol, Stu offering free drinks if they got the exit right. They were close to Enema all the meet but just lost a bit of focus on the last 2 rounds, as it was all going a bit too well.
Bronze – Satori Academy
The 8-way could almost be called Satori Rainbow as a mixture of five 4-way teams from the Satori Academy. Team members are all low experience. Their aim was to do four training days but they only managed 2 due to bad weather. As a result they were not really ready for the comp, and struggled to launch an exit. Once together they did a good job with their limited experience but could have been scoring double most rounds had they flown a launch intact. They had some emotional highs and lows with their battle for the bronze medal, and in the end squeaked into the medals by one point on the last round. Eek!
Fourth – Remote control squirrels
This is a Hinton based team, mainly of 4-way jumpers, with mid to low jump numbers, skydiving well. They did a great job with the skills they had. Good launch, you could tell they didn’t have so much 8-way experience but were concentrating hard. Squirrels entered the rookie category last year and now have moved up to intermediate. The only 8-way they have done was the 8 jumps at Nationals last year, and a grand total of 4 training jumps in 2014. They had a great competition, a terrific team vibe and were really pleased to crack the exit. In 2013 they only managed one good launch all meet but this year pulled it off every time.
0.09 seconds – withdrew
9 Hundredths of a Second was a team formed mostly from the podium places at AA 4-way, with 3 members of Phoenix, 2 from Equal Pay 4 Women, and I from Bodyflght Aero. With experience level virtually zero in 8-way, their goals were to have fun, and to launch at least one good exit. This happy team sings in the plane; their cameraman brings the lyrics and they go for it, including such gems as La Vida Loca, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Let it Be. Their biggest challenge was getting everyone together to dirt dive. One of their guys, Potter, was doing freefly as well, so he landed on a 5 minute call, changed suits and gear, walked the dive once and then got back in the plane. They loved the dive pool, “so much more fun than 4-way – the formations are really interesting, it’s bigger and funnier”. 0.09 made the best two jumps of the competition, scoring a 7 and 8. On the Monday, 0.09 reduced down to 0.07 (a 6-way), then 0.06 so were not able to compete the competition. In hindsight we could perhaps have made a couple of guest teams to complete the comp, from the dregs of the others but I guess we hit the bar instead!
BCP8
Ali Woodhouse and Jack Bradford started last year, putting together a scratch 8-way from BCPA members. Spurred on by the introduction of the rookie category, they asked on Facebook for 6 students to join them. Last year they ‘had no idea’, had lots of fall rate issues, couldn’t manage an 8-way exit and ended up just launching a 4-way. This year they sorted out some coaching from Microclim8 and re-jigged the slots better to match fall rates. They did 45 minutes tunnel on Thursday but couldn’t find an available weekend before the Nationals to get into freefall. Stumpy coached them at Bodyflight and at Nationals; ‘he’s been brilliant’. The tunnel was really useful, and now they all know the slots. Captain Ali Woodhouse said the rookie category was a useful starting point last year.
They included people from 7 universities; Bath, Southampton, Warwick, Bournemouth, York, Manchester & Newcastle. They were still finding their feet as a team, having a range of personalities – half of the team want to sing in the plane and the other half want to visualise. Experience level ranges from B to D licences. Their main goal was to crack the exit but they only had 2 goes before losing people on Monday. However, in the big picture, Ali has achieved her aim this year of getting BCPA to do more actual skydiving without sacrificing the parties. Next year she aims to have 3 BCPA teams at the 8-way, and they are also putting together a 28-way team. This has been a bumper year for the British collegiates, who have 96 registered with BCPA, they made a Bigway record 24-way, and a sequential record, 2 point 22-way in July
Rookie 8-way
BCP8lings
When Ali and Jack were looking for 2 new replacements for the BCP8 intermediate team they realised there was a lot of interest, and they put together a second team, BCP8lings. They then nominated a captain Tim Kite and he managed the team from there. They had no training but had Martin (Soulsby) helping them with the prep. This team were the only entry in the rookie category, although last year there were 3. The rookie category is randoms-only with no block moves. Additional randoms are added to the pool for the blocks that start and end on the same formation (e.g. 6, star – star, 13, satellite – satellite). BCP8lings were a bit disappointed to be the only team in the rookie category but decided to set a goal of beating BCP8’s average from last year (1.2), to give them a feeling of having a competition – a great goal that they achieved with their first 2 jumps both scoring 3. They also disbanded on Monday.
And Finally
The most repeated comment across all the teams was how accessible 8-way is. Raphaelle Bsh commented, “The nice people of Microclim8 have been coaching us – that’s why I love 8-way because that coaching is always available, you just go to the creepers and look a bit clueless and someone will help you out. It’s not like that in 4way.” Thanks to everyone for a safe competition and let’s hope to see even more teams at Skydive Hibaldstow in 2015.
Scores and detail on InTime
Related UK Nationals articles
[4-way Nationals]/article/4way-uk-nationals-2014)
