Halyard Flying.....what could possibly go wrong?
/So we were anchored in Great Harbor on Jost Van Dyke the other day, just hanging out with the Admiral on the back deck (not the correct nautical term at all..) when we were startled to hear shrieks of delight coming from a neighboring catamaran. Suspecting some x rated fun going on next door we naturally rushed to the bow to see what was going on....Instead we were greeted with the sight of a bunch of college co-eds flying through the air on the end of a 200 ft ski tow rope attached to the main halyard at the top of the catamaran's 75ft mast! The girls were screaming all the way up and down, the boys were trying desperately not to sound like the girls with varying degrees of success.....We dinghied over to check out the set up and immediately set about putting together our own rig. Our next set of charter guests included two young guys - a 23 and a 26 year old so we suggested trying our new aquatic "activity" on them, assuring them, all the while that they wouldn't go that high.....they wisely declined.
Our next chance to experiment came a week later on Peter Island when we were able to con our new set of guests, this time two 18 year old high school seniors....who lacking the wisdom of their elders agreed to give it a shot..this went fairly well however I was disappointed with the modest heights achieved (maybe 20 feet) so we planned to add another 100 feet of ski rope...
Finally, last Sunday we tested the newly improved rig on our all too trusting friend Brianne, mother of two delightful little boys, 4 and 6 years old.....Let's just say that the results were spectacular in many ways...one being that the lovely Brie almost lost her bikini bottoms, the other when her 45lb six year old, Jack, almost went into orbit! See for yourself and tell me this doesn't look like harmless fun...