World Championship preparations 2008

last updated
  september 23 2008

So finally the world championships started. You can read a full report of the event at the WC web page
but for the CF CaTo report, you have to be here :-)
The event was better than expected: in weather,, in results and in fun. Not only did we make good and valuable jumps, we learned a lot,spoke to the other competitors and just had a good time.. So much different than the WC@ Eloy in 1998. not only were the jumps more concentrated (on Tuesday we made 7 jumps, so were busy all the time) but the compactness of the DZ, and the good organization made it just perfect.
We competed in the CF2 and CF4 competition. In CF4 we teamed-up with CF3, the other CF2 team. Although we did not make one single practice jump together, we managed to make a good average of 3.28, and with a maximum score of 4, we were quite happy :-)
In CF2, we did also good: not only did we score just about the same points as during the dutch nationals (and the draw then was much quicker) but we also managed to equal the national record, with our large and old 143 Lightnings! (compare that with the triathlon 99 of CF3...)
we ended up on the 11th place, out of 20.
The icing on the pudding was the final score in the webchallenge: surprise surprise: but we made it to the podium: with a third overall place we are very happy -)

our final scores:






Some promotional activities during the WC by CF CaTo: Interview Radio Gelderland, Interview SBS6 en interview FAI-Documentaire.

August
30-31 august
last weekend of the month, almost the last possible trainings weekend before the WC... and... the STORM arrived :-) in our national colors, with a flair of orange on the side, they looked smashing while, red and blue. On Saturday, we made our first jumps with the new canopies, and boy... was it difficult. I thought (yeah... really..) that I could just pack them and fly away, making points just as we did with the Lightnings. But they are different... and fast... and heavy in steering and braking... so I almost quit at the same day. But Tom and Kees kept on rigging, and kept on saying that of course you need time, but at the end the storm gives us a bigger chance of success than the lightning... So we shorten the brake setting, replaced the mesh slider for a spider (thanks henny) and added a kill-cone. and ..... after 7 jumps called it a day. The next day was used to see if danny,, our cameraman could fly along with his stiletto. NO WAY.... and since I became scared that I would 'forget' the lightning moves, we went back for two jumps to the good-old 143. But thoughts and actions go everywhere, so for the last jump of the day we gave it another shot, and with danny on the L143, we not only got a steady picture, but we even score points.... a lot... :-) so maybe, if the weather permits, we can make somewhat more practice jumps and will use the STORM at the WC :-) we will see



22-24 august  NKP
Dutch Nationals @ Teuge
Mixed feelings during and after the weekend of the dutch nationals. It started POSITIVE: after my neck problems it seems that I could see and jump rather freely, so we could participate. NEGATIVE at the moment we heard that our first jump would be on Friday, at 8:00 clock... which is really early.... and that and stress resulted in not too good jump, but with an acceptable score of 9. We thought that it was high enough, but the score of the other team proved to be better, and a national record at 12! their gamble of using the smaller 99 sq/feet canopies in combination with an advantage in the draw, resulted in that record. The second jump was again not good, well, we thought it was a 10-pointer, but the jury saw an error at the beginning and that resulted in 10 seconds less time than we thought. And then the weather became terrible and the big waiting started. After 4 hours, I finally understood why Tom is not in favorite of participating in competition events... In the evening we decided to bring back the fun for the next day, with nothing to loose (since the other team had already more points) we just 'got jumping' again. And... that went well :-) with two 10 pointers, and even an 11 point score (our record!!) we got more than we could have expected at the beginning of the year, and we got the average needed to get 50% of the WK-money. So except for the silver medaille, we are happy with our own result.
this is us:

and the final score looked like this:

note that the lowest scores are removed before the total score is calculated


15-17 august
Just on time for the nationals of next weekend mmy neck seemed to be somewhat OK again. So on friday, with help of some pain killers (doping free :-) and a modificated neckbrace, we made our first jumps again. Jumping out of the plane and reaching for the pull-out gave some stress, but the opening did not hurt, and I was able to make points again :-) Yeah!
And we had more good news: the official scoring of our first competition was released, and .... WE WON!
here you see the final score:

Team	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Total
CaTo	8	8	9	8	8	8	6	9	64
CF3	6	6	10	8	9	4	7	8	58

and although CF3 has the first CF2 national record, we won :-)
next week the final test before the WC: our nationals @ Teuge. I will try to keep you posted via this medium, or else via my hyves:  http://cato-makes-it.hyves.nl

8-9 august
fist weekend in month and month that we did not jump... neck problmes still exsist, and after a week of complete rest it did not feel good enough to make the first jump again. I did buy a neck brace (recommendation: www.sportbraceshop.nl) for rest and one for jumping. Hopefully I will go up again next weekend and give it a try.


the month of the dutch championships NKP..we hope....
The first weekend was not completely what I expected: although the test with the new camera setup was great (danny removed the wide angle, and our docks are better to see for the judges, and the stack-stack we learned from looking at the french 2way also was good, I managed to injure my neck quite dramatically during the second jump of Saturday. A hard opening, and there it was again: my spinal cord injury from 2003 was back again (see the about section). My neck hurts, my arm hurts and i can hardly keep my head straight on my neck...  So shit happens... but just three weeks to go for the dutch championships... and I am really worried. tomorrow, Tuesday, I will visit my doctor and ask for some superduperfaster treatment. keep you informed.


July
26-27 july first selection competition @ Teuge
with almost 200 training jumps this year we thought we where ready for our first competition aagainst our competitors: CF3. The competition was flown over 8 round, and with a thunderstorm weather forecast we expected to have some turbulence during the weekend. But the turbulence came from another source :-) The exit of jump 2 gave some trouble, with a shaking airplane we were thrown of the plane, and after I removed Tom's foot from my face we could open.... Only to discover that a line of Tom's chute was broken, so no points and a cutaway on 3500 feet right above the DZ..
In jump 6 the other team decided to make even more turbulence, and had a nice wrap after their second point. With a streaming parachute one of them had to release.... and cut a hanging line, in order to become completely free of the main parachute, so he could open his reserve. But here also: everything OK, and with the rigger close bye (thanks Kees and JW, you are THE BEST)
Then the result: no official judges @ the DZ, but two very willing and expert users on site, so we wee served with an non-official score that was so close, that we will wait and see for the official score of the international jury.
By the way, nice footage (including cutaways) at the daily video of teuge, see this link

update July
It may look like we stopped jumping, but the opposite is the case: we are too busy with work and making our training jumps that this blog is a little frustrated and did not receive the updates it should have gotten.What's the situation: we made again a lot of jumps, some good, some average and some just not that good. Competition-stress is coming, and we saw a glim of our competition: if they are as good as they look on the video we will have an interesting competition :-)
The weather in holland might be better, so we even could have made more jumps than the total of approx 150 that we made so far this year.
Oh yeah, in the mean time we ordered new chutes at PD: we both go for a Storm 120, red white and blue, with a tough of orange. The chutes will arrive the week for the nationals, but no, normally we will NOT jump them until after the WC. Although, if we have nothing to loose, maybe we will just use them before, and see how far we will get.


June
long weekend 12 - 15 june
Our start of the long weekend was great, not only with reasonable good weather (and the people 'at home' enjoyed the rain :-) but also with our first ten-score this year. If we can work on that, and improve furthermore, we still might me competition material :-)
And after a good day, the next day can only be bad... Friday the 13th gave us no incidents or accidents, but also no great jumps. Maybe we (read = I) thought we could do it... Fortunately, the Saturday was again good, and we made some nice jumps (see also a clip in the day video of the dz). The weather on Sunday deteriorated, so we left after three jumps and a lot of waiting. But overall it was good (and Holland won :-)
weekend 7-8 june
and again a good weekend. 5 jumps on both days, on saturday one 'fun-jump' with a full load of clear-and-pull friends on 12000 feet :-) nice to see all those canopies in the sky. On Sunday Tom made a jump with the new Storm: nice nice nice, although with no CRW additions a little too fast for my 143 lightning. But it might be a good replacement for our 'getting older' lightnings.
Danny flew with us, so we have proof that we can still make some points :-) Even one 'ten' score in between. So maybe there is still hope :-)

Sunday june 1
After a neighborhood-social Saturday, we had just one morning to make some jumps, before we had to get family-social :-) two jumps were made, not very good and comfortable...

May
29 - 30 may
A mid-week training: since the FS-4 team habenero would be on the DZ to make some training jumps, this was the perfect opportunity for us to join their loads, and practice also. on Thursday the weather cleared at 17:00, and we started jumping: at 20:00 we made 4 jumps, not bad at all! 9in two ways: the number of jumps and the quality of the jumps: we still can do it)
On Friday, again 4 jumps were made, but over the complete day. Which resulted in a lot of waiting and waiting, which is not good for the concentration (but maybe training for the WC itself????)
The quality of the jumps was a little less than on Thursday, but still acceptable. But we have to work on the stability and reproducibility of our moves and transitions.

weekend 24-25 may
Well.... the Friday jumps were... how should I say: belabbert. just NOT good. maybe we had a pre-championship-dip, but after almost 4 weekend of deteriating jumps, the Friday was the worst. Even Tom, normally the steady point, could not get the grips. Maybe it was due to the turbulence, but it just id not work. So we stopped. And resumed, after a night with wine and good company, on Saturday with concentration and an even-load manifested day. So at two o'clock we managed 5 jumps (from 9...) and did well again :-) so we still can do it, we are able to make more than 4 or 5 points in the first minute. Unfortunately, danny was not able to jump with us, so there is no evidence, but believe me, it was 300% better as the day and jumps before. Sunday was grey and looked like a waiting-day, so we decided to make it a family-day. Better stop while you are feeling good again :-)

Pentecost weekend (pinksteren - 9-12 may)
yes! a long long weekend full of tracing jumps... well... that was the idea, but when we arrived at the DZ on Friday, the bad news was given very quickly: our perfectly good flying airplane (PA-JMP) was not so perfectly good flying anymore;: during a regular checkup they discovered a problem in the hot-section and..... the plane was grounded. So the rest of the weekend a cesna 182 and cesna 206 where available. So we decided to make it a family-saturday, and see how busy the Sunday would be. That turned out to be a good guess: on Sunday we made 5 jumps out of the 206. Unfortunately, I can still not exit this plane, so for me it was not that much fun. And it became turbulent.... On Monday, the 206 was there again, together with far more skydivers than on Sunday. So after the first turbulent jump, we decided to call it a day and leave..... So at the end we made 9 jumps, in a weekend that was planned for 20 jumps...

1-2-3-4 may
With a long weekend ahead, we drove on queens day to the dropzone. Not good weather at the time, a lot of wind and it looked like rain. So we used the day to make our order for our new Sonic jumpsuits :-) If everything goes well, they will be sponsored by the DZ Teuge. The only thing we have to do is become the 2008-dutch champion CF-2.... Well, we like a challenge :-)
Thursday was somewhat better, but with only two jumps not really what we had expected. But then the weather changed, the sun appeared and on Friday, Saturday and Sunday we managed to make 7-6-6 jumps :-) wow. Most of the jumps were just CaTo jumps, so no camera (Danny had to earn some money doing tandems) but in all jumps we learned..... well, maybe I have to say that I (Ca) did the most learning: like we day in Holland: it took some practice jumps before the quarter actually fell, and I was able to reproduce the stairstep-stack topdock. But on Sunday, with help from Tom and Kees, I squeezed my hand a little less, so the sand would not fall out... and the top dock was finally reproducible :-)
And if you want to see some of our practice jumps, take a look at the day video's:
friday, saturday, sunday
and here's a photo of our exit (thanks fonsz!):



April
April 27
The weekend started early: We took a half day off, and went straight to the DZ :-) The weather was OK,, and  without any  hush, we made three jumps on Friday. This weekend proofed to be the weekend of  practicing the  stairstep-rotation (straight and diagonal). On Saturday and Sunday, we made 5 jumps each, and with great help and understanding of the dZ-manifest, most of the jumps were from 9000 feet. Jump 1 on Saturday was the most memerable for us: without any warning we ended up in an ice-cloud, between 7 and 3.000 feet. Not only cold, but also wet....
On Sunday, the first jump was memorable for the cameraman: he made the first footage of a funnel :-)
By the way, you can see us on the day-video of DZ-Teuge: Saturday and Sunday

April 18
having the Friday-afternoon off from work gave us the opportunity to make two jumps on a normal week-day :-) unfortunately, the start of the Saturday was not promising: overcast. Lucky for us, there were also a lot of tandems, so we headed for the sky.... And there the GPS of Tom proved itself: the other CF team got lost above the clouds, but we landed all three on the DZ :-) After that jump, the weather deteriorated, and finally, after looking at the forecast, we decided to head home and stop for the weekend. Stupid stupid stupid: on Sunday, the blue skies returned, but we were sitting at home, and "enjoy' the first day of spring. Well, lets try it again next week.
And for our jumps: we practiced the stairstep-rotation, which is more difficult than it seems, but can buy us time for more points.

April 10
Finally... we have made our first jumps of 2008! The first was of course the scariest :-) for me. Strange to notice that even after 1350 jumps, the first-of-the-season is always done under more stress than the last..
So, the first 11 jumps in the weekend of the 12th. It seems like we did not completely forget how to do two-ways. We were a little rusty, but after looking at the first video footage, we weren't completely discourage: a 6-points jump, after 6 month of doing nothing (maybe we should have waited for 10 months... :-)
Danny showed that he is already up to speed, and is not afraid to be very close to us, and can stay there. So we really seem to have made a good choice for the cameraman.

March

February
NEWS-FLASH:
New cameraman! Danny V will be trained by CaTo to become the teams cameraman for 2008!