Competition News

When we arrived at the takeoff, the organization told us that it would be an awesome day. However, cirrus clouds arrived over the area and blocked most of the sunlight. Because of that, most pilots were quite surprised, as the task committee announced a 107km task (la mesa, 10km to the volcano, a turnpoint in the northwest, back on the plateau towards the butterfly’s and west again to hit the time cylinder and the last turnpoint is the takeoff above Valle de Bravo).
Already when we were preparing, the cirrus clouds became dense and the climbs after the start were weak. After the airstart at 3700m all pilots headed for the volcano turnpoint. Because the sky was completely overcasted, the field split up in two groups: a big group followed a direct line, while our small group made a detour in the high mountains. Climbs were weak and it looked better for the big group. But after a while, our group did better and we could overtake them at 4000m. Now the cirrus became that dense that sun became invisible. We thought that it is time to go into the final glide. However, we were able to find weak lifts low in the valleys and could take the second turnpoint. Tim and Steph did an awesome job and were leading the field. While the leader group decided to go off track to find an other thermal, our group decided to go to final glide. In the end we were flying further, because the leading group could not find any other thermal. In the end, Adrian Hachen and I finished 200m behind the first, with Urs close too!