A Swiss on the podium after 2 tasks !
Elie Bourdilloud,
2. May 2012
Joël, Nanda, Hansjörg and I (Elie) were at the 2012 Mosel Open last weekend. Saturday and Sunday, the wather was unfortunately bad enough to prevent us from having tasks. Monday a task was finally set. But at the beginning there was no lift at all, because of the overcast sky and lack of wind. After a few long hours of waiting and bombing out, some pilots finally managed to stay in the air and soon the whole gaggle was struggling around the launch to remain airborne. Nobody made goal, but the best of the day, Simon Kirsch, flew 35 km. The best Swiss was Joël who ended 5th with 20km. Difficult conditions made this task very hard work for everyone, but it only gave 173 points to the winner... So everything remained open. Tuesday the weather looked a lot better. Before the first briefing, Bernd Weitzel took off for a warm up flight and found a bit of lift... AT LAST! Maybe we could have a good flight that day... The comittee set a 53km task downwind. It was a bit difficult to gain enough height over launch to fly towards the first turnpoint. Nanda, Hansjörg and I took a good start and managed to stay with the first gaggles until goal. Joël struggled to climb before the start and was still as low as the launch (100m over the flats) when the start gate opened. However he managed to get to cloud base a bit later. Having nothing to lose, he attacked as hard as he possibly could to catch up with the first groups... He entered the goal cylinder second and ranked 4th because of leading points ! In the end the swiss pilots made a good impression in the overall ranking : - Joël 3rd - Nanda 1st girl and 6th overall - Elie 12th - Hansjörg 13th See you soon !
