Batchelor Rel Week 2017

I can unequivocally say Bigways are Alive and Well at Rel Week. There was a large contingent of new and seasoned super stars attending throughout the boogie. Davey morphed into coaching/organising a more advanced group of players. I took on ground coaching the Star Crests, mixed Bigways and POPS players.

Congratulations to those who completed their star crests under our watch: Kat Papastratos from VIC; Ryleigh (Ray) from NT, and Adam Gearly from NZ. All with great potential and I hope they join us on our journey to break a record in 2019!

Thank you, Red Ferguson, for assisting me with flying coach slots for my loads. Red was to coach Freefly and Angle jumps. Well, I managed to nab him to help our group flying base slots and soon realised what a jump pig he was, with Red being more than happy to help. I think he won some prize for the most jumps of the boogie –  having facilitated many of these loads, hey where is my half? (not sure how we can halve a Tshirt)I truly was bedazzled how Red would coach first a freefly jump, then change into his RW suit and run to the dirt dive and do a smashing job with our group, then two more loads later he is coaching an angle jump, then back to bigways, then maybe a 4way… amazing job Red and all with a massive smile and great input into improving all loads.

As with true boogie style jumping after each load you start again collecting tickets for the next bigway jump. Well, EVERYONE LOVES DAVE and it was hard to fill my loads with experienced players; damn it is hard to compete with my dear Guru-of-Bigways husband. It wasn’t until my mixed Bigways group jumped, a nice 4pointer, that we suddenly got the attention of Davey and his group. This generated some healthy ‘Loncasty’ husband and wife coaching competition …

Maybs Prahl took that leap back to the sport at Rel Week and after a currency jump, was fashioning her moves in Davey’s group like she never left. Bec and Paul Smith joined for some jumps – they are currently flying in Pauls’ plane around Australia on this big adventure visiting some amazing places around our beautiful country. Paul and Davey were styling on one of the loads with some crazy bipole base – how often do the Smith’s jump bigways? It appears you never lose your groove once mastered. Cindi and Phil dropped by but it was Cindi that had all the fun getting in a few jumps. Phil flew loads in his grand Caravan, having flown it in from his Innisfail DZ . The ride to height was luxurious for everyone on board.

Yukari was all smiles as usual attending with her good friend Natsuko from Japan. Batchelor is Yukari’s old stomping ground and I hear she nearly bowled over her surrogate Dad, TC, upon her arrival. Helen Mahony’s arrival was a nice surprise – she just happened to be in nearby Darwin for a work conference. How convenient! Can you manage another conference near Moruya so you can join us there too?

Karen Fuller, an experienced jumper with the recent Aussie Women’s 4way team, thought she would test herself with Bigways, loved it and is attending Moruya. Yay! So glad to have such talent onboard.
There were the usual Rel Week suspects such as the Smedley’s; Sandy was just magic managing manifest always with good humour and a smile. Thank you! Steve was busy jumping other loads helping out but believe he got a few good jumps in with Davey too. Another regular at Rel Week are the Brennan’s. Nigel and Kelly both provided great input into the Star Crest loads. Thank you

I was blown away catching up with Megan and Cheri from the 2010 Aussie Record event. So good to see you guys. The thing I really love about jumping Bigways is catching up with old friends jumping at some place around the planet. Shirley and Dixie were there too, I think it was their fifth attendance to Rel Week. Karen Fuller was the instigator of a women’s jump on Monday morning and Kelly with Shirley engineered an interesting jump. The men’s response jump ended up being the winner, with some creativity from Dixie, carried out by Davey to build a man’s you-know-what with Momo on the front, and once built projectiled off in a superb barrel roll to represent – yes, you-know-what too. Pity they didn’t have enough for that zipper part of their formation – it must have been a cold morning with some shrinkage. Maybe next time it will be in better form…

Both Kelly and Shirley engineered and coached some classic Bigway formations with the girls that day in celebration of days gone by with Fiona and Stretch coaching at Rel Week. Was there 12 points on one of those jumps? Do I recall correctly? Love your work ladies!

Now I’m nervous having mentioned some but not everyone as there were so many super stars at Batchelor… eek! Please forgive me – this was not supposed to be a formal ledger of attendance but you know I love you all and really enjoyed catching up with so many friends, and meeting new skydiving buddies too.

Thanks to Marco who flew many of the camera slots on our loads during the boogie on his own ticket. Steve Fitch was in fine form spitting out some treasured camera moments. Spot Tonson joined in too flying both as a participant and camera slots. Spot was in fine form too jumping last out on our 4pointer Bigway jump.

The POPs corner under the shade of trees was called Jurassic Park. They call themselves the PaceMakers. Too funny. Most are on a road trip around Australia with their better halves, or to the Batchelor boogie and home again. What an adventure! Some of these guys I see huddled under the tree at Picton jumping amongst themselves but never had the time to chat and see what they are up to. Well, they are up to big things in their own personal jumping and gearing up to jump at the upcoming POPS World Meet being held at Nagambie in April 2018. Gordon Turner, I won’t reveal his age, never ceased to amaze me in improvements. Tell him to make four changes and I was hopeful if he got one. Well, he made all four and did a fabulous job that I would expect from a 21 year old young punk new to the sport – where does learning end? Never apparently for these chaps. John Kinton had some invaluable instruction from Davey on slow fall and was flying like a Super Star – well all were given ‘gold stars’ from Tracey for a job well done. Thanks Steve, Don, Elvon, John, Gordon, Mal, Roger, John Paul, Mal, John and Ross for the laughs and fun. We must do it again sometime soon.

Unfortunately, Batchelor is not immune to windy days. Picton DZ I hear was closed for 5 days due to high winds, same with other DZ’s around Australia during that week. Well, the boogie was affected as well so we didn’t get in as many jumps as we would have liked. Davey and me hopefully accommodated most with the loads we engineered and debriefed. It was just lovely to escape chilly temperatures down south. It was 37 every day. Hot but heat you could escape by moving into the shade. And the nights were a pleasant 18 – 20 degrees. Noice – as Davey would say.

Thank you to Brendan and his crew for keeping up the sustenance (food) during the boogie. Thank you Phil for the Grand Caravan and Bernie for perfect flying all loads as usual, and also TC for keeping the aircraft fuelled and flying. Thank you Deb and Naomi for assisting in Manifest and running the event. Thanks Terry King (TK) for your eagle eye throughout the event as CI. He is a fixture at Batchelor, along with TC – Dave and I enjoyed all our chats with your guys! Thanks to Kopple and his team from Mee Loft, who were kept busy packing, repacking reserves, measuring for jumpsuits, making necessary adjustments to rigs and jumpsuits to keep everyone in the air. John Connolly summed up the event well with his closing speech. Sorry if I have missed thanking everyone involved. Being an event organiser myself I truly understand and appreciate how much work goes on behind the scenes by so many volunteers to pull off such an awesomely well run event. Thank you, we love you all for the great work done and hope there will be many more Rel Week’s to come!

I will end by saying this was my very FIRST Rel Week and I can tick the box having made one jump during the boogie. However, I am heavy with guilt not being able to purchase a case for the bar Saturday night to celebrate my personal ‘achievement’ with everyone. Every time I approached the bar with my cash, there were cases still stacked high and I was positively turned away with another drink in hand. Oh dear… I have an IOU case for Rel Week that will have to wait until 2019… I have no problem with being reminded neither. Maybe Rel Weel 2019 will be good timing as an Aussie Bigways reunion after our Perris Record breaking event. What do ya say? Keen to join us next time?

Written by Tracey Basman