Base mettle

Mar 22 2009 by Mike Kelly, Sunday Sun

ON a balmy morning in Dubai a North businessman leapt into the history books as a part of a two-man team who became the first to BASE jump off The Burj Tower, the world’s tallest building.

Yet the IT expert who runs his own company and is feted in the world of extreme sports for the feat wishes to remain anonymous.

For as Dave, 44, and his French partner Herve Le Gallou watched dawn turn the surrounding desert from black to pink to blue from the 166th floor of the Burj tower as they prepared to jump, it was not only his life but his very livelihood he was potentially putting in jeopardy.

He explained: “Herve wasn’t bothered if he was caught. He was OK. He had no commitments. But I had loads of personal stuff going on, my business, my mortgage. It didn’t bear thinking about.

“We got legal advice from an Arabic lawyer about what might happen if we were caught. He said ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, so the judge will have no idea. You might get a slap on the wrist or a year in jail’.”

But how did he get there? Two years previously he had done his first BASE jump from the Norman Foster-designed Millau Viaduct in southern France, a night leap from a 270m high roadway into the darkness of the valley below.

Dave, a former paratrooper, had become interested in the sport and had gone about it the traditional way by finding his mentor Frank — an experienced BASE jumper — who showed the novice the ropes including how to pack his parachute and see them through their early jumps.

The memory was as thrilling as it was terrifying and Dave vowed never again. However, his mentor got him do two more jumps that night – once more from the Millau and another from a smaller bridge – and Dave was hooked.

After about 50 more jumps from Buildings, Antennae, Spans and Earth — hence the name BASE jumping — the chance to jump from the Burj Tower came about quite by chance.

By this time he had linked up with Herve. Dave explained: “We had planned to do a jump in Morocco. That fell through and Herve said ‘I’m going to Dubai instead’. When he said he was going alone I said I was going with him.”