Four members of the Volunteer Lifeboat Crew at Burnham on Crouch RNLI have fulfilled their ambition of completing a 13,000ft skydive with the World Famous Red Devils Parachute Regiment Display Team.

Neville Murray, Samantha Weetch, Martin Hipsey and Duncan Rawlinson aka ‘The Burnham Dropouts’ completed the jump, and raised over £3,000 towards the Burnham Floating Boathouse Appeal.

The skydive, originally scheduled for 3^rd September but postponed due to poor weather, took place at Langar Airfield in Nottingham, and a party of supporters travelled with the group to help with words of encouragement and congratulations.

BBC Essex Breakfast Radio Presenter and Patron of the Boathouse Appeal Ray Clarke, interviewed Samantha and Duncan live on the show, both before and after the event.

Speaking on the morning of the jump, Samantha said “I’m so excited; I want to know what it’s like to fly like Superman!”

Duncan Rawlinson said afterwards, “The others were taking the mickey out of me all day, as I was pacing around, I really didn’t want to do it, but I got down and would have gone straight back up, it was absolutely awesome!”

“The support The Dropouts have received has been brilliant. I’ve even had complete strangers hand over cash to me when they’ve heard what we were doing. We’d like to thank everyone for supporting us, we really do appreciate it”

So far the Appeal has raised over £20,000 towards it’s £50,000 target and more fundraising events are planned for 2011.

To view Samantha’s skydive click here

To view Duncan’s skydive click here

To view Martin (Hippos’s) skydive click here