Day 5 - Task 3
In the morning, conditions looked worse than yesterday; more clouds and also a lot of wind.
A task of 68 km was set. This time we explored new terrain after the first waypoint, the goal was in the far west from takeoff.
The day developed in the opposite way than yesterday; the high clouds mainly disappeared and the wind got weaker. Already after the start the field split up in several gaggles. Climb rates were much lower than you would expect judging the clouds. So the race was pretty slow, also because most pilots did not want to take too much risk after the mass-bombout yesterday. Today, a defensive flying style was better anyway.
There were three different lines / groups on the 55k-leg to goal. Michi Sigel and I were in the middle one and Michi masterfully controlled the group the whole time. About 10k before goal the right group with Alfredo merged with us with a slight advantage for them.
I had an nice line on the way to the last thermal and with 2 other pilots we caught the thermal better than the Pilots behind and got in goal earlier. Michi Sigel and Alfredo followed shortly afterwards.
A few minutes behind, the other groups merged and many pilots got to goal more or less together, also Yael, Beat and Franz. Jörg lost some time on the way but made goal and Emanuelle unfortunately bombed out.
There are only two more days to go, but obviously the forecast looks pretty well.
Photos by Yael and Michi Sigel.
Martin Scheel on Friday, 20. April 2018, 17:21