Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing
By Tim Mace

      

Freefall Style and Accuracy Landing (or Spinning and Stomping as it is sometimes known) is alive and well. Nationals saw the largest turnout for several years, 14 competitors, and a number of newcomers tried their hand at both events. Alex Jordaan broke the 9 second barrier on his first ever style jump, which is the qualifying time to make it into round 2 at a world championships. Marc Bouwer got a line over on his first ever accuracy jump, on Simba’s canopy, and managed to ‘diagonal rock’ it clear (you learn how to do that sort of thing if you do accuracy). Several people have expressed an interest in learning style and accuracy, if not for competition then to improve their skills. We plan to have several seminars and opportunities to try it out during the year. So if you, or your dz, are interested let one of the sub committee know.

The sub committee this year is Tim Mace, Cornette Blignaut, Paul Marcellin, and Jasper Williams. The funds in the account have been slowly building over the last few years and we now have enough to purchase an accuracy scoring system. This comes with a score board viewable by the spectators, and two scoring pads with the new 2cm target (Yes, 2cm!). The system should be with us by late November.

In March 2009, once again South Africa will be represented at the world para-ski championships, this time in Austria. Tim and Simba have been to the last two world championships, Montenegro ‘05 and Italy ‘07, and now others are starting to become interested. So far it looks like we have 5 entrants. However, we are allowed to have 12 entrants so if you are interested please contact Tim Mace tim-mace@metroweb.co.za. The event is 9-14 March 2009 and anyone who knows even vaguely how to ski and is prepared to learn accuracy is welcome. You’ll be doing three 1500m ski races down a mountain, and six accuracy jumps onto the side of a mountain. We’ll be doing some of the accuracy training by winching, as we have in previous years. We place the target about half way down the winch run, get off the winch line between 700ft and 1300ft, and make an accuracy approach. We get up to 6 approaches an hour at about R40 a go. This is great fun, and very efficient, and you don’t have to pack!