Steady as she goes out in front for line honours leaders Andoo Comanche and LawConnect. According to the official race tracker,Andoo has a lead of almost 10 nautical miles as they hit the same latitude as Tasmania’s northern tips.
At the helm of Andoo as always is John ‘Herman’ Winning jnr - the man can spin a yarn. Like the day he came half a nonchalant second from death while skydiving.
“Skydiving out of a plane,you hit the air at pace,” Winning says.
“Out of the blimp,it’s dead silent. It’s like you’re falling off a cliff,it’s quite peaceful. You gain speed,hit terminal velocity and pull your chute.”
Except Winning doesn’t. It’s his ninth jump of the day. Half a second longer,and it’s his last.
“There’s a safety device that releases your parachute at 1000 feet[300 metres from the ground],” he explains.
“It only goes off if a skydiver is unconscious,something’s gone seriously wrong. You don’t want it going off at all.
“I pulled my own chute late and when I’ve hit the ground,the safety officer ran over,looked at my digital altimeter and it read 1050 feet.
“I was less than a second away from having two parachutes deployed,those two chutes inevitably getting tangled,hitting the ground and in that scenario,you’re dead.
“That was me done for the day,I learned my lesson and have been jumping plenty of times since then,that was five or six years ago.”
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