Acrobatic high divers plunge 70 feet into Duluth Harbor, set against backdrop of Tall Ships

DULUTH – Maya Kelly, arms raised above her head, held on to a custom-made platform with just her toes 70 feet in the air, facing away from the Duluth Harbor.

She pitched herself from the perch, completing a double somersault with a twist before landing straight-legged in the 60-degree water with a thwomp. The deeper the sound of the thwomp — and the less splash on impact — the better the dive.

“This is scary every time,” said Kelly, 18, a gymnast-turned-diver who competes around the world in cliff diving events.

Kelly, from Stillwater, was among a dozen divers who completed two practice dives Thursday afternoon, plunging from a temporary platform erected along the new seawall behind the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center and into 24 feet of water in the harbor. The athletes will compete in the inaugural Superior High Dive Challenge on Friday and Saturday and an exhibition Sunday as part of the Festival of Sail, a showcase of tall ships, vendors, music and one extra large rubber duck.

Spectators gathered behind the diving tower, some with phones up to record the scene. An area described as a splash zone wasn’t named as a warning about getting wet. It’s literally a good place to critique each diver’s splash.

In the seconds before her dive, Kelly said she thinks a lot. But the next part is automatic.

“My body and my mind know what to do,” she said. “I just have to trust that.”

At water level, two divers in wetsuits are in place for safety. They splash the lake water so divers can orient themselves mid-flip and then go beneath the surface when the divers submerge to make sure they are OK.

The extreme sport draws competitive divers, some of whom were college athletes, who might fall short of competing in the Olympics but have the skills to wow audiences in a show setting. They tour internationally and, like Kelly, most get scared on the platform. A bad landing can be career-ending.

“You’ve just got to believe in yourself,” said Scott Lazeroff, of Rochester, N.Y. “Trust your process, trust you can do it.”

He tried two new dives for the event: a reverse double tuck and a back triple.

Dana Kunze’s Water Show Productions created the diving tower for the event. The company’s namesake, who grew up in Minneapolis and claims to have dived from most bridges over the Mississippi River, holds several records in the sport. His dive from 172 feet remains the highest of high dives and a video viewed millions of times on YouTube. Now in his 60s, he remains active in awe-inspiring feats and is featured on a recent episode of “David Blaine: Do Not Attempt,” where he helped the magician prepare to make his own mega leap.

High divers have changed over the decades, he said. Kunze described the newer athletes as serious divers who have gotten into adding great heights.

“It’s amazing, even to me, what they do,” he said.

This crew has experienced colder dives than the one offered in Duluth. The water is far colder in the Boston Harbor, according to Kelly. Lazeroff, who is also a trapeze artist, thinks the coldest high-dive venue is in Russia, where he recently competed.

“It was 45 degrees outside and 10 times as cold as this,” he said.

Miles Rohrbaugh, a Duluth East graduate who continued diving at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, will serve as a judge during the competition. He said he will be looking for gracefulness and the divers’ positioning while they are in the air. He was happy to see his hometown welcome the sport.

“I’m all for it,” he said of the venue. “I love bringing diving up here.”

Organizer Owen Weymouth, of USA Diving, has been trying to get an event in Duluth for two years. It’s the first of its kind on the Great Lakes and it’s expected that the crew will do it again.

Weymouth led off the practice round, a black bandana wrapped around his head, a red and white striped shirt and blue poorly cut shorts — a pirate costume to match the weekend’s theme.

He, too, landed with a thwomp, quickly resurfaced and made an OK sign with his hands, then scurried up a ladder out of the water and waved to the crowd.

Through the competition, tall ships lined the seawall and were docked behind the Garden in Canal Park. They are available for tours, rides and general conversations with their keepers. The World’s Largest Rubber Duck, which sits nearly as high as the diving platform, was inflated midday after the wind died down.

It all made for a unique background for the divers.

“It’s awesome,” said Nate Jimerson of Burnsville. “It’s a beautiful view.”