Judith's blog

Geoff writes: first, we’ve been updating the Twitter feed most of the day with information about the North South Cup. However, Twitter itself – not our feed specifically – has some problems, and is only working intermittently, so if the tweets don’t appear on the right, refresh the page later and they will reappear.

We can’t give a full report on the first day of the comp because we weren’t there. Because of the poor forecast here, they went to Milk Hill, a round trip of around 250 miles, where the forecast was better. This, of course, meant some pilots local to that site drove all the way here last night, only to drive all the way back this morning. But, you do what you have to do to get a good flight (well, most people do, but not us! We were too lazy to do the drive, even though it was pretty clear it would be a write-off here, and probably a reasonable XC day there).

And in fact, from reports, it was definitely the right decision, with many going XC. As far as we know, the furthest was Richard Bungay at 116km, but others in the 70s and 80s. Some results, all to be confirmed, are Dave Thomas at 70 km, Martin Knight 40, Helen Gant 87, Alex Colbeck and Kirsty Cameron around the 50s. Of course, far more than those went XC, but we haven’t seen the list yet. We’ll find out later tonight when we are going to the comp party.

Tomorrow, we think they are staying local, and Long Mountain or the Mynd seem the most likely. But that won’t be decided until tomorrow. But at least they seem to have had a great first day for the comp.

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I decided to fly on the last day and the main objective was to enjoy it. The forecast was for windier conditions and an evening flight looked unlikely, so I went up in the first bus and got ready. As we were setting up, wave bars started forming in the distance and I decided that I would fly until they got closer and then I would go down. I didn’t fancy flying in mountains with lots of lenticulars around.

The task was designed to keep us away from the wind and we had to go into wind to a start cylinder 3.5km away, then 20km north and zigzag a bit then back to the HQ. I took off 20 minutes after the window opened and spent the next 40 minutes getting high and trying to push forward. I headed out over the ridge in front but failed to clear it and had to head back to the launch ridge. It was turbulent in the lee, so I resolved to get a lot more height before my second attempt. I got a strong thermal and got to 2300m and cleared the ridge easily, although not without a little kicking. I lost a lot of height getting to the start, but managed to drop back onto the ridge, climb up and get back to the launch ridge to start making my way to the first turn point. I ridge soared to the end of the ridge, while Calvo called the conditions level 2 (caution). Adrian Thomas and Wagga had been calling 2 or 3 for a while, so I decided then that the task would soon be cancelled and I didn’t fancy being in the bottom of a windy valley or having to wait for a retrieve bus, so I about turned and headed back to St Andre. The task was cancelled 10 minutes after I landed.

The ironic thing was that I didn’t actually find it that rough or scary. I was flying around thinking that if this was how the other days had been, I shouldn’t have been so wimpy and just got on with the flying. However, when others landed they said it was the worst day of the lot, really turbulent and nasty (others reported nasty conditions further along the course line, so I think I didn’t fly far enough to get into the really rough stuff). It just goes to show how important not just your attitude is to a day, but also your feeling. You can be really up for a task and accept roughness, or be worried about the conditions and feel the turbulence as really threatening. Since I wasn’t bothered about the task, I flew as far as I wanted and as far as I enjoyed it and when faced with a bunch of valleys I didn’t think it was sensible to be in, I made the choice to fly away, so had a nice flight.

The flight (and stunning views) did make up for some of my negative views of the place and it’s clearly a great place to fly, but I’m not sure I’ll be back in a hurry for an all out racing comp – at least not without going there to do some free flying first. There are rumours of the Nats going back there next year and I think that would be a shame. For one thing I don’t think it’s good to go to the same venue in consecutive years and for another, given that nearly 10% of the competitors had incidents, it might be good to have a more relaxed venue to attract a wider field of competitiors – the Nats are not just for the big boys after all.

Prize giving was fun and great to see Kirsty second overall in serial class, and local boy Neil Roberts second in the champs. And of course well done to Craig and Wagga as well.

The dancing went on into the small hours. And I had the great honour to be told to f*** off by Bob Drury who was the DJ. Apparently he doesn’t do requests!

See photos of today’s flying and prize giving.

Geoff writes: the final score – ten reserve deployments, one power line landing,  and at least two tree landings. And another incident I don’t know of – the competition organisers said there were 14 incidents in total. There were about 146 pilots, so about 10% of the pilots had serious incidents. That seems quite a high risk to me. Maybe it’s a reflection of the venue, maybe it’s the type of gliders people fly. Flying is always going to have an element of danger, there will always be accidents, and people don’t have to fly, they choose to do so, it’s their decision. But for me personally, a 10% chance of an accident like this is way, way too high!

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I decided to have the day off today, and get away from the crowds. I have been surrounded by people for two weeks and fancied a bit of solitude. After a lie in I did some work and then the went for a leisurely lunch on my own and was snoozing at the river when the race leaders came in. It was a nail biting race between Luc Armant and Neil Roberts, and Neil won. I was going to go for an evening flight, but ended up just driving for Emma and Mark Begg, who is here on holiday.

See photos of today.

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Feeling better, I decided to go up the hill with everyone. The reports from yesterday’s task were scary. The task was up in the high mountains, past the Cheval Blanc and back. Another blue day, the height gains were impressive, but this also meant people were climbing through the inversion and shear layers. By the end of the task, the incident count was five reserve deployments, including Mark Hayman, who has a stable fracture of a vertebrae and has broken a wing off the same bone. He’s walking and not in a brace, but will not be able to fly the rest of the comp. There were two other incidents, with Kirsty and another pilot in trees. Conditions were described from ok to ‘fruity’. Having only witnessed one parachute deployment in 15 years of flying, I think this is a little excessive. I prefer to do my SIV courses separately from my XC flying and I really don’t like how wild this place is and how strongly the valley winds blow.

So today, we got up in the early bus and then the wind was strong over the back. We assumed it would come more on with the thermals, but even when the window opened, it was still often 90 degrees off and people were launching from the south take-off, whilst we were on the west. The launch conditions did come good and everyone got off safely.

The task today was out front in the valley, where you could just about see the turn points. I was much more relaxed about it and set off reasonably early and got straight into a thermal. The trick with the start was to place yourself downwind of the first turn point, which is the other side of the valley. So you do the hard work getting across the valley (via a top up ridge), and getting high, in the hour before the race starts. I got to 8500’ and got onto the top up ridge easily. Others were marking a thermal that would get us over to the ridge we needed to be on. It was all going fine, when the guy in front of me had a big blow-out and lost most of his wing. Since I was heading in the same direction, I assumed I would be hit by the same turbulence. I didn’t have the stomach for it, and turned away. On thinking about it, if I was free-flying, I would not have taken off in the middle of the day, not chosen to fly where we were and not chosen to fly in an area I feel so out of my depth. This competition is all about pushing myself so far out of my comfort zone that I am actually not enjoying the flying in the slightest. And in that case, why am I doing it? Decision made, I flew down to the landing field to have a day off. I’m in danger of scaring myself to the extent that it will have an adverse affect on my confidence, and given how great I felt after Ager, I don’t want to do that. I feel that the main thing I would learn here is to push myself beyond my point of fear and I already know I can do that. So I’m done with the comp. From now on it’s just fun evening flying and a holiday. I’m much happier now.

There was another parachute deployment during the task, and although people said it was mellower, I’m still pleased I just did my little hop.

No photos… too scared to take my hands off the brakes. I hope to take some in a nice evening flight.

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[posted for Judith]

I woke up still feeling heach-achy and groggy. By lunch time I was better, so decided to sit in the shade by the pool. After a while Martin D. came by and we had a nice chat and watched the leaders come into goal. It’s the perfect viewing spot, but I have to say I think the huge numbers of Ozone R.10s has spoilt the spectator sport potential of paragliding. When everyone was still on different wings you could tell the individual competitors. Now it’s just a sea of blue or red identical wings, and all the fun is in spotting the R.10 stragglers who arrive after serial wings and then try to land as far away from anyone else to try to hide their embarrassment.

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We went off to launch and it looked like a great day. I started to feel a bit woozy while setting up and once the window opened I realised I had a migraine coming on. I thought the safest for all concerned was if I just flew down. I landed fine, packed up and went back to the house. I did come out briefly to try to talk to Geoff, but I was feeling very dizzy and head-achy, so I skunked off to bed while the race leaders headed in. I was in bed the rest of the day/night.

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It was far too windy from the outset to consider flying, so the organisation gave us the day off. We went to a Via Ferrata about 40 minutes away. Ten of us went and after a short walk in we climbed a number of sheer vertical faces. We did three traverses. The first was a himalayan bridge, the second an monkey bridge and the third a hundred meter zip slide. The pictures say it all, really.

See photos of today.

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