The hoards of bungy jumping maniacs are on their way!

Posted by isurvived, Friday 08 October, 2010

So here i am sitting in the back office listening to metallica (was originally looking for system of a down but couldn’t find any on this computer, but you can’t beat a bit af metallica anyway).

So anyway, its October already and summer is on its way. So along with long sunny days and evening BBQ’s comes all you crazy people who wanna do a bungy jump.

Ill give you an idea of how busy we are during this time. Typically during winter a busy day is jumping between 30-50 people, and thats busy, especially when its cold and wet, but from about November till February, a busy day will be 150 people! So yeah, a bit of a jump and we are aiming to beat our busiest day of 197 people this summer. You should see our crew working, they don’t know what hit them!

If you’ve ever wondered how we get you in the water and how it all works, here’s a breakdown for you;

For us it all starts in the office. For you it most probably starts a week before when you decide that you’re actually gonna do a bungy jump, after all that worry, fear, apprehension, will writing and insurance policy renewals, you finally get to the taupo bungy office and start filling out the forms and weighing in.

Then its out to the platform.Here we re-check your weight and sit you down, very close to the 47m drop your about to fall off so gracefully.

We put your ankle binding on, which look and feel like prison manacles, for those of us who have been in prison, this will be a familiar feeling for ya.

The Jump Master must now figure out how much rope they need to give you, because we specialise in water touches (and complete water immersions)

To figure this out we need to take in all sorts of variables. 1st one is your weight. There are three cords we use for the variety of weights, green red and black. 

Those of you between 45 and 60kg’s are on the green cord, 61-86 your in the red cord, 87-109kg your on the black cord, 110-137 you get to the combinations of cords to green red, 138-164 green black, and finally the limits of our bungy’s 167 to 180kgs on the red and black cords.

Once we’ve got you on the right cord we gotta figure out what that cord is doing, and how much extra rope you’ll need to get in the water. This takes alot of practice to be precise. The JM must keep an eye on the river level, the height checks from the crew in the boat as the cords get used more during the day they warm up and get stretchier and stretchier and if they are not used they get colder and less stretchy and as they get older they get more stretchy. Complicated i know, but we kiwis are a smart bunch!!

Then we tie a few knots, hope they hold, and off you go!!! (of course we do some checks and make sure you’ll survive the experience).

And that’s basically how we get you in the water at Taupo Bungy.

Questions? i know, loads…. flick us an email.

Peace out people.