Day Five - cont.

The picture from the "Day Five" post, the one below this one, embodies what the day was like for the early if not most of the day.

A 105 mile task was called that looked to be pretty difficult with high clouds coming in that dampened down the conditions. Many people relit, including Eric launched three times before he stuck. Ollie decided not to fly, Stump got about 4 miles out. I launched late and drifted with the little lift I had, but it was enough to be over a big gaggle (see picture). I went on glide with another glider and had a tough time getting up and I had to work upwind to hit a 600fpm, one of the best climbs of the day. Despite the high clouds there were some low cumies and some blue areas far out.

how many gliders can you see?

The quality on this blog doesn't help, but there's actually 9!

I stayed low around some big wind towers until I hit another climb that took me to cloudbase. Despite the big gaggle early, I only flew with about one other person with the most of the day. After getting back to cloud base I headed over to the biggest road to try and get up before a big scrubby area as far as the eye could see.

James said him and the flexi's that eventually made it to goal had some trouble in this area and, like me and Eric, wanted to get high to be able to cross it. James said they hit 500fpm to get over that area, that we didn't hit once we got there. I was low, maybe 1,500' over the ground and tried to work upwind, knowing that whatever I hit would drift me back over that area and the further I hit it upwind the higher I would be once it drifted me over that area. Eric was higher than me when he got there so he went for it. I never hit anything and landed on the headwind glide. Eric landed in one of the few bare spots in that no-man-land area. I went about 30 miles and Eric went about 40 miles.