Manus making a splash

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The Coffin, Cannonball, Staple, Gorilla and of course the classic Manu. Manus are making a big splash in Auckland this month at the Manu World Champs.


I’ve sketched this subject before, usually between fine-tuning my personal favourite The Coffin which is not as dangerous as it sounds, as good as I’d like to think and mainly practiced by old guys like myself back in the day.

I’ve always thought the summer activity of jumping into a lake, stream, pool or ocean to cool off has been raised to the level of an art form in Aotearoa. One-upping the bros with a bigger splash and bigger sound. I was once mulling over this on a trip to Australia where I witnessed local wharf jumpers; all flailing legs and a pathetic splash. 

Where is the style I thought? The explosion of water... the d i s p l a c e m e n t... the ‘ooomph’ of a perfectly executed Manu, one that bystanders can feel through their feet???

So what a clever idea the inaugural @manuworldchamps were last year. Heats and qualifying rounds went on for weeks across the motu, then it was Auckland’s turn for qualifications and the finals weekend. Head down to the Wynyard Quarter for qualifiers 15-16 and & 22-23 February and this years grand final Saturday 1 March.

A competitor told me ‘The Gorilla is the one bro’. Sort of the opposite of the Manu, were the jumper enters the water in a butt-first in a V-shape, the Gorilla is a beast! Just before contact with the water surface the jumper somersaults forward creating a bigger impact and bigger risk; ‘...you gotta hit with your pelvis bro or else’ ‘Or else?’ I asked – if your back hits the water surface instead of your butt, it creates a massive slap sound accompanied by searing pain and a touch of humiliation. Yep, ‘back-slap’ is to be avoided at all cost, but done right The Gorilla creates an underwear exploding* vacuum on impact with a resulting explosion of spray as it implodes. *true story I was shown evidence.

I spent some time trying to capture some manu jumpers in mid-jump though is not easy. They don't exactly just hang there suspended in mid-air while the sketcher draws them do they! In reality is each sketch is made of 2 or 3 consecutive jumpers, I take a mental snapshot of part of each one. 

Imagine if you could take a mental snapshot, remember the whole image and just draw it at your leisure - now that’d be cool.