IN MEMORY HAYDEN ROWAN

Hayden Rowan

20/09/82 to 13/02/08

Hayden Rowan was tragically killed in Moshi, Tanzania, in a plane Crash, while working for Skydive Kilimanjaro. Hayden was just 25 years of age.

Hayden did his first Skydive in January 2006 at Taupo, after his parents gave Hayden and his younger brother Michael a skydive Voucher for Christmas 2005. Hayden was working as a motion Graphic designer in Wellington when Michael found details of the Diploma in Skydiving Course at Methven and Hayden then decided to pursue a career in skydiving.

He started the 8 month Diploma in April 2007. As part of the course, it's traditional for their 100th jump to do an "undie jump" Hayden wrote the following about his undie jump

"For your hundredth jump it is traditional that you do it in your underwear. Lucky for me it was a warm day (+1 at 12000 feet) and we were in the warm plane. I also joined in with some other people's (I dunno why) but the temperature on these jumps was -19, then you have 200 kph windchill to take into account, it was torture!"

After completing 170 jumps while on the course, he decided to go to Moshi Tanzania to do his 3 months and 30 jumps work experience. Hayden moved to Moshi in September 2007 and became a permanent employee of Skydive Mount Kilimanjaro as their camera man. Hayden's skydiving dream became his passion (he had found and was living his dream) Nothing would stop him from Skydiving as the following email he sent out to his family and friends shows.

" Had my first reserve ride today, on what I thought was a sweet pack job. All went sweet up till opening when I had a brake release and through me into line twists and a downward spiral. Anyway it was obvious pretty quickly that the twists weren't coming out so I cut away the main and flew around on my back for a bit and almost got stable when I pulled my reserve handle.

Anyhow the reserve opened between my legs which gave me some pretty mean burns on my leg. To say the opening was violent would be an understatement. I got whiplash in my back and I literallyy couldn't see for a few seconds. The reserve ride was agony but I managed a nice soft landing, and I laid there for a while until I realised that I needed to see where my main canopy was going to land. It gave the African Guys who work for us a bit of a scare, I don't think they had seen a cut away before. One of them ran off to get my canopy and ended up having to bribe a Masai 5000 shillings ($5 US) to get it back.

Anyway I went to the doctor, and I have just got some muscle damage to my back, so he said not to do anything for a few days....yeah right, unless I can't walk when I wake up, tomorrow I'll be jumping.


This letter was kindly written by Hayden's mum, Kathy, who in a display of the utmost courage and respect for the wishes of her two boys is supporting her other son Michael through the same diploma and into the sport that took away her son.

Jumpstart 2008 Doing it for the Kids

DON'T MIND DOING IT FOR THE KIDS

Every now and then you catch yourself feeling a bit low on life and wallowing in your own troubles and woes. It's times like these when you need to be reminded (through awesome Initiatives such as Pete Maher's Jumpstart) just how good you actually have it.

Pete came up with the idea last year of joining forces with the RNZAF and some leading Kids charities Canteen (supporting Kids with Cancer) and Project K (helping Kids maximise their potential), and getting a bunch of Tandem Masters (lets face it, we do have it pretty good), to donate their time for free to help give these kids the experience of a lifetime.

Hell Jumping out of a Herc is an experience most skydivers would kill for!!.

This Year, it is all happening again and with lessons learned from the inaugural event, is set to be bigger and better than ever.

Deepseed are providing Free T-Shirts to all the Kids and Staff, and YOU can make a donation either via the Jumpstart Website , or by buying a T-shirt for just $30 from Deepseed. Just email us at info@deepseed.com and tell us how many t-shirts you want to purchase. It's that simple!

All profits from the T-shirts will be going to the charities, so If you can't get to the event, and if you haven't sponsored one of the kids, You can still support the cause and have something that will help to remind you that you do have it pretty good compared to some people (just in case you find yourself wallowing in the blues in the future).

Deepseed Dave will be at the event, and we will bring you a full write up in Next month's Newsletter.

Team Crux in the USA

Team Crux in the USA

What a great idea lets leave Australia’s beautiful summer and go to a bitterly cold Arizona winter and spend thousands of dollars to fly in a wind tunnel. What compels us to do these things!

Who cares; its fucking fun !!!

Fly into LAX pick up the car and point it towards Arizona 8 boring hours later pull into the sky rider inn to crash out for a 4:30 am start.


For eight days straight we get up at 4:30-5:00am head over to the tunnel and relearn body position, block moves and re learn body position again and again until it sinks in to our thick heads. Thanks Joey Jones and Todd Hawkins for your persistance!

We spent two or three hours in the morning in the tunnel and the rest of the day creepering or jumping out of hot air balloons or high altitude jumps from 21000 feet. The guys at Skydive Arizona are awesome lots of cool people from all over the world come together at one drop zone to share skills and have fun.

Leaving Arizona was easy we had thrown all of our money at the tunnel and we were off to go base jumping In Idaho at the Perrine Bridge in twin falls. After stopping at a local base sight in Arizona to watch the crew from the drop zone got off a 400 ft rock in 15 knot winds we were pumped to get to the bridge and have some fun ourselvesYou drive over the bridge before you get into town so stopping to have a look over is a must. It doesn’t matter how safe people tell you it is you’re still shitting yourself just looking at it.





After meeting some of the locals we had to get used to the idea that you stroll out to the exit point take your time and go when you’re ready.

This was quite different to the base jumping we had experienced back home with Douggs running to the exit point of a 180 ft bridge quickly getting static lined three seconds of canopy flight then get in your car and get the fuck out of there.

I much prefer the Perrine Bridge.

We all got off about ten times each starting to have some fun with the 480ft bridge, back loops, side floaters and two way roll overs to name a few. Also a very cool experience jumping in the snow and watching a local pull a triple gainer and his canopy exploding before he dropped into the freezing cold water. He was fine once he was dried off and had some warm clothes on.

I have to say a special thanks to Ahren for showing us the ropes and taking us to some amazing places in Idaho including a beautiful hot spring up in the mountains covered in snow, very special.

Douggs The Author

THE “NO SHIT THERE I WAS” BOOK compiled by Douggs

Hello my friends and everyone else,
I would like to start collaborating for the final book in my three book series that I have been writing and I need your help!

The first book is a tongue in cheek autobiography about my twisted life and its called “CONFESSIONS OF AN IDIOT”.

The second book is detailed interviews with 16 remarkable friends throughout the Australian skydiving/base jumping scene and is called “ALL MY BEAUTIFUL FRIENDS”.

The final book is not an original idea but it will make for some crazy reading. It is simply called “NO SHIT… THERE I WAS”.


I want to compile a hundred crazy, but true stories from everyone that has been a part of skydiving or base jumping. Whether you have 1 jump or 10,000 jumps, it doesn’t matter, as long as you have a crazy story. It can be one paragraph or 10 pages. It can be about skydiving or base jumping or anything crazy that happened at a party or a car accident or anything. It can be of life or death or just something silly. I don’t want to set any guidelines and it can be written however you like with as much swearing and crass shit as you like. Write like you were telling it to a group of mates at a party when your wasted. I don’t care. It just needs to be crazy, scary, twisted, funny or all of the above and more.

I would also like to get stories of “Did you hear what this dude did…” or “You wouldn’t believe what I heard…” these are always some of the most entertaining, crazy and funniest stories around. I have finished writing the first book, am half way through the second and really want to get started on the third.

If it gets published, each person in it will receive a copy.

Please send your stories through to my email douggs@basedreams.com.

And please include your full name, nick name or alias and a contact email or phone number.
Please also pass this email on to every crazy dude or chick you have ever met. Im not doing this for cash but rather to try and give people a little insight into how twisted, crazy and amazing our lives are.

I know there are a million cool stories out there, so please give up 30 minutes of your time and make this happen.

Shine on

Douggs