"This year, the Vichy boogie took place in Lapalisse". However nonsensical this may sound, this sentence still fairly sums up the situation. For almost 11 consecutive years (the 1992 boogie took place in Brienne-le-Château), Espace Boogie, run by Joël Cruciani, remained faithful to Vichy for the organisation of their summer boogie. It had such a reputation that "Boogie de Vichy" had almost became a proper noun.

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ome say that all good things come to an end and, despite the organisation efforts to make the boogie and the planes different every year, it looked like some of the participants were beginning to feel a growing weariness.

Was there a link here ? Anyway, the Lapalisse DZ (also run by Joël Cruciani, another link here ... ?) was chosen this year as the place for the 13th edition of the event, that took place from July 28th to August 5th. Moreover, the advertised plane was a turboprop DC-3 ("only" 42 skydivers) and the formula was also changed for the organised jumps with more homogenous groups and a compulsory pre-registration.

Alas, only two days before the first day of the boogie, the staff announced by e-mail that, due to technical problems, the legendary DC-3 could not fly to Lapalisse and thus would not be present. In return, Yan Wildgrüber's 2 Super Twin Otters came to support the 2 CAE Skyvans. From there on, many questions remained as to the participation and progress of Espace Boogie 2001...

From one's arrival on the DZ, answers were obvious : a more relaxed and friendly atmosphere, a good jump rhythm with smaller RW and better structured free-flying organised groups, landings on the DZ and more comfort thanks to the tents set up to extend the DZ infrastructures (packing hangar and manifest). The bar with its terrasse, the ever-running music and the few stands (Parachutes de France, BoogieMan, Foolpix, BlueBook and Phlint) brought their indispensable touch for a boogie atmosphere.

Imperturbable from dawn till dusk, Gilles Défourneaux ran flawlessly the manifest for the 4 planes, which was no piece of cake, all the more when some went to the wrong boarding area in spite of a clear separation and a marking by plane number and colour.

Even if "back-to-back jumping" was rather difficult with 4 planes, the jump rhythm was so high that this was not necessary to jump a lot. One could jump right after manifesting when one accepted to jump from either kind of plane (Skyvan or Twin Otter). All the more as the weather was very good, with the first stand-by coming only on Thursday after 5 consecutive days of absolute blue sky, which saw the Skyvans and the Twin Otters fly continuously. Thus there was even little talk about the famous DC-3, probably forgotten by most people...

The stage is set, the following pages will relate the boogie from the inside, with the stories of 2 participants who made jumps in the 2 disciplines mainly represented this year : RW and free-flying. As far as the others are concerned, here is a quick summary : sit-flying was covered by a "head up" organised free-flying group, only a few participants practised skysurfing, Éric Fradet was among them and he also made wing-suit and free-flying jumps. Nothing very big for wing-suit jumps, unlike last year when the staff had arranged for load organisers : a group made of a few experienced RW jumpers endeavoured to brief jumps with structured moves in order to increase the technical level while welcoming some fresh blood from RW or free-flying.

And it was indeed one of the things to be noted about this week : a more and more obvious mix of the disciplines with (among others...) rocket free-flyers who would follow (safely !) the large RW formations in order to shoot images, RW skydivers being part of the track-monauti jumps, sequence flying on the back, free-flyers following tandems (without the drogue) or a bellyflyer (size XXL) in shorts, tube, hoop or raft jumps.

Espace Boogie has entered a new dimension, less gigantic, more friendly and with more importance given to the quality and number of jumps made. The outcome can be summarised with a few figures : 9 123 jumps made by 352 participants and 466 Skyvan and Twin Otter loads. This is almost as much as last year in Vichy, where 10 350 jumps had been made by 634 participants in 138 Antonov-72 loads. However figures alone cannot sum up such an event ; we offer you the tales of two participants, together with the week's best pictures : Gigliola Borgnis, free-flying load organiser and Évelyne Chiarot, RW skydiver and regular ParaMag contributor who expresses herself this time in quite an unusual way...