Task 4: 55 Km in better conditions, Swiss day!
Michael Küffer,
5. October 2016
Today, the feared north wind stayed away and a 55km Task was set, an out and return around the tricky corner to the flat parts on the other side with landing in St. Leu. Conditions were remarkably better than yesterday and climbing to cloudbase at 1’300m was no problem. As expected and discussed before the task, the most difficult thing was (again) the part after 5km around the corner with headwind. Like in the two tasks before, many pilots bombed out there. We (5 Swiss pilots and a bunch of French guys) found ourselves in a gaggle with a comfortable lead over the second group. The thermals were quite nice and reliable with beautiful clouds. After 15km, I chose a line over the plains closer to the sea and had some fantastic thermals while the rest of the group closer to the mountains struggled with a lot of shade and weak climbs. I managed to get in front and after we turned around, Jan caught up. Together we flew back to goal quite defensively in weaker conditions. 10 minutes later, Michael Sigel flew over the line in third position! Christoph and Markus followed within 20 minutes, also in the top 15. Overall, there are now 5 Swiss in the top 10. In the nations ranking, we could catch up a little but it will probably be almost impossible to beat an army of 40 French pilots... Life’s still good down here, we just came back from the beach and tonight is the first pilots dinner in St. Leu. We still don’t know if the scary north wind will strike soon, our experience so far has shown that neither the forecast nor the weather judgement of local pilots can be trusted… We’ll see!
