Wind Turbine Base Jumping Championship

The World's first ‘legal’ wind turbine base jump was the venue for the final round of the 3-leg series UK Open base jumping Championships.

BASE jumping is the adrenaline sport of parachuting from fixed objects and its title is an acronym that contains the major groups of objects these jumpers generally use: Building, Antenna, Span (bridge), and Earth.

It has historically been a clandestine sport, carried out furtively by a closed set of radical enthusiasts. But it has evolved into a highly technical, cutting-edge modern sport, no longer worthy of its reputation as the reserve of loonies.

The rather dangerous sport, which involvesfree-fallingg from mountains, bridges or tall buildings or objects before opening a parachute at the last possible moment, has gained popularity after it was featured in numerous action movies, such as Vin Diesel's xXx and several James Bond films.

Base Jumping grew out of skydiving and is banned in many countries such as Australia but despite this five of the thirty jumpers in this competition come from “down under”. For such competitor's it was a welcome change to see their sport celebrated rather than vindicated. Many of the competitors were seasoned skydivers with over half of them making 1,000 plus BASE jumps previously.

The massive Wind turbine from which the jumping took place was visible from miles around and a small but enthusiastic crowd cheered the jumpers in this inaugural competition. After climbing 310 steps inside the turbine, the competitors were then lowered down from inside the “egg” on top of the viewing platform, from where they took off.

This is not a sport for the faint-hearted but even so, the competition was only open to the most experienced for obvious safety reasons. Each day Jumpers were given two practice rounds to get used to conditions and then four competition jumps. Each jump had a maximum score of 10 points, awarded by a set of judges. The weather on the day was perfect; little wind and bright sunshine.

Their target was a “bullseye” with the centre (max points) the size of a tennis ball. After two previous rounds in July and August, there were three contenders for the title. In the end, it was the Australian Chris “Douggs” McDougall who won. The 32-year-old roofer ran out with 37 points.

These are the rushes from the day.

Видео Wind Turbine Base Jumping Championship канала Britclip