Competition News

After a relaxing rest day, the team was full of power today. The only problem was, that the conditions were again quite humid on take off. We were waiting more than one hour until the clouds lifted and we could see the valley. Todays task was a 66km Zig-Zag task up North. While most of the pilots took of very fast and easy, some of us got stuck on take off for more than 30minutes, as clouds made it impossible to launch. As soon as we could launch, it was quite hectic, as we had only 15minutes left for the airstart at 12:30. Of course the time was not enough and our group had to take the start lower than the rest. But it was not too bad: because we were low, we were forced to fly out in the valley and got a really good line to the first turnpoint. The group that started high in the mountains had a pretty bad line, as clouds were covering almost the entire sky. Until we reached the first turnpoint, the sun disappeared almost completely. Everybody tried to climb in 0.1m/s thermals and when we were flying towards west, I was sure we would all bomb out. However, in complete shade and only a few dozen meters above ground we found again a lifting zero meter climb. While the lowest of the group had to land, we slowly started to climb and could reach some sun towards the second turnpoint. Now I was flying together with Tim and we could push a lot in the sun, while most of the following pilots were struggling in the shade. Thermals were difficult to find and cyclic and all of a sudden I was alone in front. On the briefing we discussed that the small ridge before the last turnpoint usually don’t work and it is better to fly around on the left or the right. Of course today the ridge worked perfectly, while my detour did not work. That’s why the group could catch me short before the goal.
Because of the leading points I still could win todays task, Tim and Christoph came in a little later, Emanuelle also.
Interesting side note: Laurie is currently in 3. place in the overall ranking - impressive flying from her!