Paragliding, Genesis - part two
Take three young kiwi males, one car, a bunch of toys, a bad idea, and what do you have? Why, it just might be the Cadbury Moro Ohau Spectacular in New Zealand, 1987! One of those weird multisport events that had fermented, possibly along with other substances, in the mind of some twisted individual with capitalistic intentions and a morbid sense of humour. Run up the Ohau Skifield, ski down to the carpark, fly (on hang gliders – the first paraglider had barely stuck its head out from between the legs of skydiving rigs back then) to Lake Ohau, windsurf up the lake to the pub, scull a pint. To John, Deane and me it actually sounded like a good idea! Let’s take a week - no, fortnight - off from studying, load up John's 1953 Austin Standard 8 with skis, climbing gear, hang gliders, windsurfers and beer, and chase down some fun, Ohau way!! Oh yeah!!
And I have this idea for a secret weapon for the race!! It so happens that Bruce, a skydiving mate of mine who makes parachutes for a living, has built something called a ‘parapente’, whatever that is. A parachute you can launch by running down a steep slope. With seven cells and lines you could suspend a bridge from, this thing goes down faster than Xaviera Hollander after twenty dollars - but for this race, that’s just what the doctor ordered. Besides, it sounds like a great new toy to play with.
So John, Deane and I roll into Ohau, coughing and wheezing (John's car leaked black, oily exhaust smoke into the cab) and laid siege on the local establishment. We set up camp on the Ohau airstrip – a long broad strip of grass overseen by a ratty red windsock, separated from the highway by a few grazing paddocks. Paddocks with sheep in them. We cooked on an open fire. Climbed crags. Windsurfed on the bitter glacial waters of the lake. Skied. Flew our hang gliders down to the airstrip at the end of the day, and ran back up for the car. Spent time in the bar, worked on the car exhaust, played the guitar and slept under a blanket of stars. Bars, cars, guitars and stars - I was a true ars man. Life was good, and the days rolled by in a blur of activity and beer. We were having a great time, day after day of fun, with not a care in the world. And then we remembered the parathingie in the back of the car.
“I reckon we could BASE launch it from that bluff below the skifield road.”
Whoever the genius was that came up with that pearl is lost to me now, but it actually seemed like a good idea at the time. I did have a couple of niggling doubts in the back of my mind, but they were assuaged by persuading Deane to go first.
“Why am I going first?”
“I’m suffering from an attack of common sense and don’t want to die, and you’re expendable. I think it’ll be perfectly safe, though. For me.”
These were truly Mark I days. We figured that John and I would stand as close as we dared to the edge of the cliff, holding the corners of the canopy. As Deane, harnessed and helmeted, took the plunge over the edge, we’d basically toss the wing after him. The technique was perhaps more aligned with a burial at sea than free flight, but hey, what could go wrong?
As Deane plummeted earthwards at nine point eight metres per second squared, a flapping comet-tail streamer of nylon tracing his vertical descent to certain death in the rocks and scrub below, we had our answer.
“Deane? DEANE!!!”
Appalled, John and I ran down the road and cut back to the base of the bluff where the mortal remains of Deane lay covered by the paraglider. Oh God, nooo…
We arrived at the scene to find the mortal remains of Deane staggering to his feet. “I know what we did wrong…”
Thirty minutes later Deane flew from the same bluff, landing between the base of the hill and the lake.
That night the winds came.
That night the winds came. A paint-stripping, roof tile-lifting, Southern Alps nor'wester, a severe gale for a day, two days. Dust, old papers and loosely rooted plants blew down the airstrip. We couldn't ski, fly, windsurf or climb. It blew a gale. It blew a riot. It blew a revolution. It blew from hell, and it blew the pale eggs of the beast. etc. etc.
What could we do? Young men and boredom don’t mix. And there was nothing to do, nothing at all, except sit in our tents and wait it out... or was there?
"Got it, you guys. The parachute thingie – we’ve forgotten all about it! We could tether it to a tree or the back of the car or something... maybe tie it on with a dozen feet or so of climbing rope... take turns at having a go in the harness, letting it fly kite-style... in this wind it should easily lift someone of the ground – what do you think?"
"Hey, good call... what can possibly go wrong? Hold my beer while I look for something to tie it to. How about that tree?"
"Nah, too many branches... the rope might snag... what about that corner fence post... that big one in the corner of the airstrip that keeps the sheep out? Its pretty solid, and its braced by all that number 8 fencing wire running the length of the strip... should do the trick..."
So, we tossed a coin. Deane won. Trust him to get first dibs. So Deane gets into the paraglider harness, and John and I struggle to get the glider itself out of the bag and laid flat on the ground as the wind raged. No mean feat in that blast. The rope is connected between the corner fencepost and the paraglider harness, with Deane on board.
On the count of three, John and I fling the flapping canopy into the hurricane, the wind catches it and it snaps into life. It rapidly plucks Deane off the ground, and flies overhead, trembling in the gale like a jellyfish at a disco. At this point several things occur to us: the wind is CONSIDERABLY more forceful than we had really imagined and was putting a huge strain on the glider, harness and rope; also, now that Deane was 3 metres up in the air we had not really considered how we might bring him down (18 square metres of sail in cyclone-force winds make quite a tow); it might not have been as good an idea as it seemed an hour ago; and the whole ensemble, instead of calmly flying "behind" the corner fencepost at an angle to the ground, is in levering the entire fence downwind... for a few seconds anyway...
Then, the earth around us shook, a soft low groan joined the keening wind, 3 startled faces turned earthwards as, gently at first, but with increasing ease, like an Austin Standard 8 puffing over a modest hill, the corner post pulls free. Then Twang! Twang! Twang! Twang! Twang! All the lighter fenceposts are uplifted by the Viagra-like force of the gale, acting via the paraglider, a rapidly deteriorating harness and its now concerned human contents, the 11 mm climbing rope (Hey! That’s MY rope!!!) and a half-dozen strings of that famous number 8 fencing wire, until finally an airstrip’s length of fence splits the Ohau skyline, anchored finally by the distant corner post at one end and a bright orange sail at the other, and, and, and, what are we gonna do now?????? Deane is a little speck high above us, with a paraglider above him and a fence between his knees and the planet he loves. The paraglider harness is not coping with the strain; and if the final fencepost fails, he's going to be blown downwind over those wires with zillions of volts on them that run between them pylons there. Crap!
"&<>%in' GET ME DOWN!!!!!!" We can't hear the words, but the Deane's message is unmistakable. John, we got to DO something!!! We’ve got to tie that last fencepost to something, ‘cos if that goes Deane is dead meat!!!
So John and I - the rescue team of anyone’s dreams - swings into action, leaps into the car to try charging the low end of fence. The idea is that maybe we can drive 'up' the fence, pulling it down to the ground with the weight of the car.
Well, that particular stroke of genius startled the sheep in the paddock behind, and in fright they ran towards the low, tethered end of the fence. Sure enough, one of them (now known as Britney Shears) is soon tangled in fence wire. As is John's car.
Much to Deane’s relief, John and I are now out of ideas. There's still a gale blowing, a stupendous length of fence in the air tied to a paraglider at one end, with a sheep and a car tangled in the other end, and an intrepid but somewhat homesick adventurer longing for home somewhere in between. Anyone with a trace of decency would have been deeply concerned about Deane and the sheep. Luckily, John and I didn't have any traces of decency so we just watched.
Well, fortunately for us in general and Deane in particular, after a while the wind mercifully dropped and allowed Deane, arms wrapped in a tight embrace around a large fencepost, to reach Mother Earth alive. However, Mother Earth organised it that the sheep, still stuck in the fence, got to experience flight in a couple of the more violent gusts, and apparently Britney didn't enjoy her little flights. She fell free from the fence just as Deane decided 'I can jump from here.'
Maybe it was seeing our mate survive, maybe it was the sheep's brief flight, maybe it was the indelible image of the fence arcing into the sky beneath the paraglider, maybe it was Deane nearly landing on the sheep. Maybe it was the whole situation, but John and I lost ourselves in great gales of hysterical laughter. We howled. Soon all three of us were rolling around on the ground, holding our guts, tears streaming down our faces, out of control from laughing so hard. It took ages before we regained enough control to beat a retreat to the bar to drown a mighty thirst, swallow a little humble pie and generally hang one on.
So, the three of us are sitting in the bar, the odd ones out in room full of locals. We were outnumbered by gumboot-clad, singlet-wearing, sou'wester hatted farmers who kept surreptitiously glancing in our direction, as if we might be lurking in their world for nefarious purposes. When the door swings open to admit another of them into their company, we realise we might have erred again.
"Hey, Trevor!", he yells, addressing his announcement not to Trevor but the entire bar. "You ain't gonna believe what I saw this arvo! Mate, I was drivin' back from givin' Stu a hand to tie his shed down, stop it blowin' away in this wind. Comin' back past yer airstrip, I saw this bleedin' parachute go uppards - uppards it went, from yer corner paddock, up into the sky! Hawhaw! An' it lifted this bloke up, right up off the ground, an' he took half a mile of yer fence with 'im! Hawhaw! Now yer fence is jus' lyin' on the ground! Hawhawhaw!!!
Burying our heads into our collars, John, Deane and I slink off to the car.
Post script: A sheepish Deane returned the tattered remains of the paraglider to Bruce. Between them and another skydiving mate, Clive, they began the development of genuine paragliders, distinct from parachutes. Eventually, Deane and Dave brought Pacific Paragliders into the world – one of the first paragliding manufacturing companies.
Deane also bravely confessed to the farmer that it was us who rearranged his fence. Apparently the year or so had allowed the farmer enough time to accept the apology with grace.
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