posted May 20th, 2008 - The May meet of the Florida Skydiving League 2008 season was a comeback event for Skydive Sebastian. The host of many FSL meets was one of the original skydiving centers when the Florida Skydiving League was launched at the end of 1997. Sebastian XL, the British national team, was the most famous home team at that time.

Skydive Sebastian also hosted the USPA Nationals in 1999 and sent the original Teiwaz lineup to the USPA Nationals 2000 in Perris to win the gold medals in the Advanced Class. The scenic dropzone near the Atlantic coastline was visited regularly by the FSL teams between 1998 and 2003.

Then it became more quiet as of 4-way competition in Sebastian. The last FSL meet was hosted by Skydive Sebastian in July 2004, and only two teams attended the event. Several other FSL teams were not able to make it to Sebastian, and it was the temporary end of a long hosting career.

Things changed when four Teiwaz members of 2007 decided to become more serious with training and competition and formed Team Tempest. The NSL News story on 28 January 2008 introduced the team and its plans. The new team name was already Sebastian Tempest when the article was posted.

Chris Ash (Tail), Kris Byrne (Center Inside), Thiago Murradas (Point) and Ari Perelman (Center Outside) did not only set up their headquarters in Sebastian. They also made a plan with the DZ management how to bring back Formation Skydiving and other activities to the skydiving center.

The comeback as a host for the Florida Skydiving League was a part of the plan, and last weekend brought the evidence for a very successful planning and execution. The previous Tempest activities in Sebastian have motivated local skydivers to become more active and form lineups for fun weekends and the meets.

Eventually, three teams from Sebastian tried to defend their home turf last weekend: Tempest (AAA), Airplay (A) and Sidewinders (Rookie).

The 4-way upswing at Skydive Sebastian coincided with an increasing 4-way momentum of the Florida Skydiving League in general. Result was an attendance at a May meet that was significantly higher than in the past years.

The last time that a total of eight teams attended a May meet of the Florida Skydiving League was in 2003, which was the last busier FSL season for Skydive Sebastian, as well. Last weekend's event in Sebastian was also an exclusive FSL affair. No guest teams from other leagues or from overseas visited. It was a promising start into the hot Florida summer season.

It seemed for a while as if the weather would make it impossible to complete the meet on one day. It has been dry and clear now for weeks in Florida, and visiting teams completed more jumps than they had planned for. However, the forecast for Saturday brought the first chances for rain and storms.

The timing was unfortunate since the much needed rain could have waited for one more day or for nighttime. The FSL teams and competitors did not really appreciate it when a mixture of layers of rain clouds and smoke of brushfires finally arrived in the morning.

The weather situation improved later in the morning, and Skydive Sebastian was prepared to get the teams in the air and turn around the loads quick enough for the completion of the meet in three of the four competition classes.

It turned out to be a very long Saturday in Sebastian, but the near completion of the meet counted more than anything else.

Home team Sebastian Tempest helped not only the local teams with coaching. The Tempest members were also ready and available to assist all other teams during the competition. The brandnew local all-female A Class team Airplay is already very competitive and was seriously racing with the two line-ups from Skydive Miami, Zero Tolerance and ZT Mal4mations.

NSL-TV will upload the first meet videos very soon, and the NSL News will follow up with more details of the competition in Sebastian.