Day 3 - Task 2 (67km)
Michael Sigel,
1. November 2017
Compared to yesterday, the sky was a little less covered today and begun to clear up even more after we arrived on take off at 10 o’clock. The task committee set a 67km task: Start was 13km away from the turnpoint B11 in the North. It was an in (0.4km), out (6km) and in (0.4km) turnpoint, which should give many options to the pilots to choose the best route. The goal was 30km later to the Northwest, airstart at 12:45. The sky cleared up even more and many pilots were quite excited as the conditions looked promising. However, the thermals in front of the take off were pumping, which means that some pilots were climbing fast and reliable, while others struggled a lot to get high. While Stefan Wyss had a hard time not to bomb out yesterday, Torsten was scratching half way down the hill today. As the take off is only 300m high, half the height reduces the options a lot. Finally most of the pilots climbed, Torsten included and could take the airstart at 1100m. We had nice clouds on the way to the first turnpoint, but again, the haze made it difficult to see far. When we reached B11, our group decided to go back where we came from. This for some reasons: first, we could safe the 2x400m of the radius (in case we continue on straight line), in addition we hoped that slow pilots will mark our thermals. It was working quite well, but a group that went to the west was slightly faster. But the difference was small and the leading groups met again after 12km and went together for the 30km to the goal. This part was supposed to be the easy part, but strong North wind and sudden weaker thermals surprised many pilots. Tim was a victim of this and had to land, as well as many others. Honorin Hamard from France was pushing a lot during this phase and could get away from the group. Stefan was with him, but finally had to let him go, as Honorin was higher and got a pretty good line. Yael, Nick and I were together in the chaser group, trying to close the gap again. Birds showed us most of the thermals, but it was not possible to catch Honorin anymore. He got to goal with an impressive 7minutes lead, the rest got in almost all together. Steff and Yael lost some time and got in a few minutes after us, Yanick had to land out. As Honorin was leading most of today and won with a big time gap to the group, he got almost 80 points more than the rest of us and is now leading this competition. Steff is on the 4. Place, me on the 7., Nick on the 14 and Yael is in second position!
