When a blunt body impacts an air–water interface, large hydrodynamic forces often arise, a phenomenon many of us have unfortunately experienced in a failed dive or ‘belly flop.’ Beyond assessing risk to biological divers, an understanding and methods for remediation of such slamming forces are critical to the design of numerous engineered naval and aerospace structures.  While the impactor’s geometry has been a subject of significant focus, the role of intrinsic flexibility of the impactor has received significantly less attention.  The research uses a combination of experimental and theoretical methods to study the impact of compliant structures at an air-water interface.