Today over the Netherlands, the largest all-female formation ever, a 35-way was built…TWICE!!
Was this a new Dutch Record?
No, for two reasons; because one grip was not taken, and because the ladies included a non-National of Holland, me!
Was it awesome?
Yes… and a testament to the hard work and commitment of these ladies, who have given everything today, the official training day before the intention to start record attempts tomorrow, Saturday 11 July.
Organization
This event has been masterminded – no, mistressminded – by Marloes Swarthoff, one of the organizers of the Netherlands almost-record last year, alongside Herman Landsman and Luysterburg. Marloes opened the event to any Dutch ladies who were prepared to come to some of the three warm-up skills events she ran through the year. Some of the women are super low experience with around 200-300 jumps. Everyone learned so much on the skills weekends that Marloes made the decision to take every single girl and give her a chance, at least on the training day.
She invited me to come and be a guest coach. At first we hoped I might be able to jump on the record; some groups such as the Aussies and Brit Chicks allow up to 25% of non-Nationals; other governing bodies insist that a National record should be all-National. Both approaches are valid… but the former is more fun ! 😉 Nevertheless I was proud to come and help in whatever way I could, even though this meant not doing the Team Elite UK 50-ways I had been looking forward to.
Training Day
Today (Friday 10 July) began at 7am, with the fitting of coloured jumpsuits in red, white and blue, the colors of the Dutch flag, provided by sponsorship obtained by well-known cameraman Henny Wiggers. Marloes and friends made a beautiful formation design, shaped like a windmill, an icon of Holland. It was a 34-way, which would easily beat the previous record of 26. This gave everyone a chance at success but left room to go smaller if need be tomorrow. But, as we kept reminding people, this Friday was a training day and no-one would be stood down…
…apart from me!!! 😉 For the right reason; that the jumps were going so well we were a whisker away from success, and it was time to ‘go Dutch’. I had had a blast of a day, going in different places in the trail aircraft and working with Marloes to tweak the aircraft positions, the line-up and the slots.
35-way, jump 5
In total the ladies made 6 jumps today, out of two Supervans (Caravans with souped-up engines), each taking maximum 18 people. As the Dutch ladies numbered 34, we had a cameraman on the lead plane and I was effectively taking the camera slot on the trail. Each jump was better than the last, ironing out the fall rate, exit timing, orientation and teamwork. The fifth jump was a complete 35-way, with me included, and with a wrong grip… no problem, just delight at being so close to a record a so early in the programme, way ahead of schedule. Much as I’d loved jumping with these phenomenal women, it was time to sit on the ground to give them a record attempt. My idea was to put Henny back into the trail camera slot but not everything works out as planned…
How the women performed today exceeded my expectations, we are way ahead of the plan
Jump 6
One of our ladies (Mireille) had sinus troubles and said she’d prefer to sit out the last jump of the day to give her nasal passages time to sort themselves out for the record attempts in the morning. NP, this gave us an opportunity to try Helen in the formation. Helen has talent and enthusiasm beyond belief, she hadn’t been able to make the warm-up weekends due to team training but had taken a day off work to come and be part of the record, even though she knew her most likely possibility was spending all day on the ground. She had been an exemplar of how to deal with the unsettling feeling of not jumping on a load when you really want to be on it; lending out gear, checking us back in on the sheet, coming to every brief and debrief with an alert happy face. So, Mireille out, Helen in; me out, Henny in, perfect – until Mireille cottoned on to the fact we might build a record without her and wanted to jump after all. Don’t blame her, I would have felt the same… so now we have Helen and Mireille kitted up for the last jump of the day, but only a slot of one of them, like a game of musical chairs. The only way to give them both a chance would be to leave Henny on the ground also, unthinkable for the best Dutch cameraflyer there is …
We axed Henny! 😉 He was happy, just wanted the girls to make the record… and they so nearly did it. Another 35-way complete but with grips missing; by the time the outside had docked the base had lost a grip, due to the hyper excitement of skydivers now on a record attempt and flying noisily where before had been calm. Nevertheless it was still an outstanding skydive, a gnat’s cock away from success.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow is another day! We meet Saturday morning, 8am, and will make the second record attempt. This will also be a 35-way to give everyone a chance to make history, even if it means we won’t have so many photos, and totally bastardises the symmetrical windmill formation! I love Marloes for so many reasons and this is one of them; the decision to take both Helen and Mireille in my opinion, both tonight and tomorrow, showed how much she cares and thinks about every single woman here.
We have had the perfect example in Kate Cooper-Jensen. The last women’s world records have been 181, 151 and 121 – not because she likes odd numbers but because the formation was designed one person smaller but someone’s talent and attitude justified adding them to the plan. History repeated itself today.. and I believe we will make more history tomorrow. I will be reporting through the day as well as coaching, so keep checking in to see how the ladies fare. I smell the scent of success, something wicked this way comes…
