posted Dec 21st, 2010 - The 3nd annual tunnel meet at SkyVenture New Hampshire simply rocked. The 4-way Formation Skydiving competition drew 30 teams over the weekend of December 11th, and the 2-way Vertical Formation Skydiving event, organized by Ari Perelman, attracted additional 18 teams.

Thanks to the amazing support from industry sponsors and local businesses, many of the competitors walked away with prizes.

Sponsors of the 4-way event included SkyVenture New Hampshire, Cypres2, United Parachute Technologies, Performance Designs, SkySystems USA, Skydive Pepperell, The Radisson of Nashua, Unfeathered, Gu Sports, and Bev Suits.

Ten teams applied a Rookie Class dive pool with three random formations per round. The 16 Intermediate Class teams had sequences with four or five random formations and a few blocks without piece-flying.

The AAA/Open Class dive pool for the four participating teams included all random formations and 13 of the 22 blocks.

SV New Hampshire 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Total	Avg
Rank	Rookie	C,H,K	J,M,O	B,E,Q	F,L,P	D,N,A	Total	Avg
1	Pat A Cake	10	18	16	16	13	73	14.6
2	For the Funnel of it	11	16	16	14	12	69	13.8
3	Flying Bricks	11	12	13	18	12	66	13.2
4	Beer Funnel	3	18	13	12	10	56	11.2
5	Meat Waffles	7	14	13	10	10	54	10.8
6	Ginger Breads	9	15	9	10	10	53	10.6
7	Chocolate Milk	9	13	12	9	7	50	10.0
7	Big Gulps	7	15	10	8	10	50	10.0
9	Diversity	4	10	9	9	9	41	8.2
10	Fall Apart	5	7	10	8	8	38	7.6

The low meet fee of just $65, which covered lunch, water, medals, a meet T-shirt, a team DVD, judging, all warm-up flights and the meet rounds, helped draw a record attendance this year. One returning competitor was heard saying "at this price, you can’t afford NOT to go."

Part of the key to the event's success is that North East jumpers and the tunnel owners Laurie and Rob Greer make a huge effort to volunteer their time and resources. Nationally rated judges Jim Rees, who served as Chief Judge, Marylou Laughlin and Butch Crook took care of scoring all the rounds. Stacey Geesey ran the manifest and assisted the judges, while Ben Liston served as the meet director.

The 5-round Rookie Class competition ran smoothly in the morning. 20 player coaches volunteered their time to guide the Rookie Classs participants through the meet. Each lineup was comprised of two player coaches and two rookies. This format brings together the vast majority of competitive flyers in the North East with the new flyers in the sport for a day of great vibes and great competition.

The Rookie Class meet aims to be a low pressure learning environment to give teams a good taste of 4-way competition.

About 80 percent of the jumpers had less than 100 jumps and 30 minutes of tunnel training. Most of them had not done 4-way in the tunnel prior to the meet. The UConn Skydiving Club came out in force though, bringing eight members out for the 4-way event.

Hopefully, this meet served as a good warmup for them, as the USPA Collegiates 2010 is just around the corner for them.

Team Pat-a-Cake won with a 14.6 average, finishing just four points ahead of For The Funnel Of It. Pat-a-Cake team members Jeff Harrigan and Jonathan Szylobryt were guided by player coaches Bu Klinge and Kim Hollander.

Jeff Wright and Michael Condon had player coaches Bob Schuyler and Hollie Reno in their For The Funnel Of It lineup. Bronze medalist Flying Bricks, with Steve Ernst and Allison Cummings, plus player coaches Brian Stephens and Mark Izzo, finished with a 13.2 average.

SV New Hampshire 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Round9	Round10	Total	Avg
Rank	Intermediate Class	L,N,9	A,G,J,O	F,C,H,P	B,E,D,Q	14,M,K	7,O,D	K,H,N,G	9,E,P	F,M,L,J	B,A,14	Total	Avg
1	50 50	21	26	26	33	14	21	20	27	38	18	244	24.4
2	Snatch Force	15	17	20	13	12	15	15	16	25	12	160	16.0
3	Out of Synch	14	13	18	16	12	13	15	14	21	11	147	14.7
4	Awesome 4some	10	11	13	11	9	17	11	17	21	11	131	13.1
5	Revolution	11	14	14	13	10	11	11	16	18	11	129	12.9
6	Mixed Bag	7	13	12	8	6	15	8	5	24	9	107	10.7
7	Murrays Crew	11	9	10	10	10	12	8	13	9	11	103	10.3
8	Mercury Falling	4	11	10	10	7	10	10	9	12	8	91	9.1
9	Sky Party	8	7	11	9	5	9	9	9	11	6	84	8.4
10	Dr. Johnnie Malibu	9	3	8	9	9	8	6	10	13	8	83	8.3
11	Adams Family	6	7	7	7	7	12	4	11	13	6	80	8.0
12	Fourplay	9	7	8	7	8	9	6	6	7	5	72	7.2
13	Fall In	6	7	12	10	4	8	5	8	10	1	71	7.1
14	Sky Sharks	7	2	5	6	7	7	6	6	6	6	58	5.8
15	Cardiac at Best	8	6	6	2	5	4	3	4	10	5	53	5.3
16	Bad Karma	2	2	8	1	3	1	4	5	5	2	33	3.3

Snatch Force was the actual winner of the Intermediate Class competition. Team 50/50, winner of the Intermediate Class event last year, competed as a guest team due to the fact that the lineup included two USPA Open Class competitors. DeLand Shmeland members Sally Hathway and Ari Perelman helped Yvonne Saa and Samantha Joseph to a 24.4 average.

Snatch Force, with Melissa Zender, Megan Clapp, Jen Cook and player coach Brian Stephens, took the 1st place with a 16.0 average. This was particularly impressive since Melissa Zender's and Megan Clapp's primary discipline is Vertical Formation Skydiving.

3rd place team Out of Sync was comprised of North East belly flyer standouts Jack Ronalter, Veera Ronalter, Alfonso Gioiella and Hollie Reno. They came in second with a 14.7 average. Awesome 4some, with Chuck Finley, Sally Finley, Paul Leslie-Smith, and Beth York, had a fantastic Round 9 that earned them a 13.1 average and the bronze medals, just edging out team Revolution by two points.

The AAA/Open Class had good competition, as well. Fallout, after a great year of training at Sky’s the Limit and the silver medals in the Advanced Class of the USPA Nationals 2010, traded rounds with Centerline.

Both teams went neck to neck through five rounds. Then Fallout's up-to-date training paid off as they built up their lead and secured the bronze medals over the last five rounds.

DeLand Shmeland and Defiance were the other two AAA Class teams, and both competed with alternates. Shmeland had Scott Latinis filling in for Rodney Cruce, while Dennis Rook replaced Jim Rees for Defiance.

Ben Liston reported that disaster struck for Defiance in Round 6 after posting a 15-pointer compared to Shmeland's 27-pointer:

"It put Defiance back 14 points on the Floridians with the scrappy Texan, with just four rounds to go. Some sloppy random work and a couple of brainlocks and busts lead to the rough score."

He said that Defiance then buckled down and earned back 12 points, in part due to a "tunnel funnel" during Block 3 that Shmeland endured after a "shady launch from the net".

End result was that Shmeland won by two points and earned the bragging rights for the night, plus some nice sweatshirts along with the medals.

Tunnel owners Laurie and Rob Greer and the meet directors look forward to expanding next year's event to accommodate even more teams.

They will likely add an Advanced Class with a few more blocks to help break up the huge Intermediate Class field. They are also considering bringing in some world class coaches to assist with the event and run a pre-meet camp.

SV New Hampshire 2010		Round1	Round2	Round3	Round4	Round5	Round6	Round7	Round8	Round9	Round10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class	14,O,5	J,22,15	L,10,C,F	N,7,21	17,K,P,M	G,A,6,D	H,16,9	B,E,11,Q	3,7,A	17,J,O,G	Total	Avg
1	DeLand Shmeland XP	20	18	20	20	28	27	22	20	16	22	213	21.3
2	Bu Defiance	21	18	22	19	24	15	21	23	20	28	211	21.1
3	Fallout	16	13	12	17	24	23	19	22	18	24	188	18.8
4	Centerline	15	14	15	16	20	18	15	18	16	21	168	16.8