August 2010
Monthly Archive
Friday, 27th August 2010 (UK)
Geoff writes: it didn’t rain (well, just a few spots). It was a nice day, a bit lighter winds than I expected. Went to Llangollen. It was flyable most of the afternoon, until it blew out, but no -one got away (there weren’t many people there, surprisingly enough). The only reasonable climb I got was immediately aftetr my first launch, and in retrospect I should have gone with that, but it was quite weak, and it seemed like there’d be plenty of other opportunities to get away. There weren’t. I landed, after big wave clouds started developing (they always make me a bit worried), then flew again a bit later, when they dissipated – to be replaced by some bigger cumulus. Overall, it was a reasonable soaring day for people, but probably we could have made more of it in terms of XC. People did go in the Peaks, from Lords, but there were a lot more flying there too.
Long Mountain didn’t work at all, too light, I think. The Lawley, the last report I had, people couldn’t stay up, but that might have changed as the day went on. [It did, and Siro, at least, had a great flight]
On driving home, early evening, I saw three gliders at Lan Fawr, doing some evening soaring.
Friday, 27th August 2010 (Spain)
Judith 27 Aug 2010 | : Competitions, Party, party, party...
Today was the last day of the Women’s Open. Because we had three valid tasks the reserve day isn’t needed. The wind forecast was for a gale, and so it turned out to be. It’s a hot wind, augmenting the already roasting temperatures here. Instead of a task we had a talk on psychology from Ruth, who is from Barcelona. Very enlightening and it gave me a few surprises on how I see myself and how others see me. Then off to run some errands and now preparing for the end of comp party. Kirsty has won and Ruth is top in the sports class, so we have plenty to celebrate. Shame our team didn’t win, since we were beaten by the French pineapples. It would have been nice to make Doc proud.
Thursday, 26th August 2010 (Spain)
Judith 26 Aug 2010 | : Competitions, Flying
The forecast was good – blue but unstable, with SW winds, which would increase later. They set an ambitious 101km task, which most of us were pretty excited about. Launch opened as soon as they could in case it got too windy on take-off. Since it was a three kilometer exit cylinder around launch, I didn’t think there was a great rush to be off, so I took off 20 mins before the race start. I got the best start ever. I was higher than everyone and set off just after the gun and got the first turn point with the lead gaggle. I have never been in the lead gaggle before, so it was pretty exhilarating. We all sped back to the Montsec de Ares ridge to get high before crossing the gorge to the Monsec de Rubia ridge. You can go along the lower ridge, but if you have enough height, then the higher ridge is the safer one. By the time I got the height to cross others were already ahead of me and I could see Kirsty and another pilot ridge soaring up the ridge.
I dropped onto the higher ridge, but far from soaring along it, I slid down the rocks. This put me and Klaudia Bulgakow in the dip between the ridges, where the air is pretty dead. A French pilot managed to work a broken thermal and get up, but I was too close to the rocks and was half in and half out of it. Eventually I had no option but to fly back to the end of the ridge and fly around the front of the lower ridge, loosing height all the time. There are no landing fields round there (in fact there is only one landing field in that area and I was miles from it), so my options were getting limited. I could land in a car park in the mouth of the gorge, but I assumed there would be a very strong venturi effect there, and if I got it wrong, there would only be the road or the river. There were two small clearings in the trees, so I chose the higher as my plan A and would use the other, slightly larger one as my plan B. It was a tiny clearing and I brushed a small tree with my body coming in, but landed unceremoniously, but ok. Klaudia radioed me to check I was ok and I ran to watch her land in the bigger clearing below, not envying her having to put down a comp wing in such a small sloping space. She had to stall the wing before she overshot, but landed unharmed. I packed up and then tried to walk to the dirt road I could see along the mountain. I had landed on old overgrown terracing, so kept having to find the edge where the path was, since the walled drops were too big climb down with the paraglider on. I eventually got down to the path and then walked down to Klaudia. By the time I got there I was pretty hot and tired, since it is about 37C here. We called for retrieve and then waited. To make a long story short, it took some hours of waiting and then a long 4×4 adventure higher up the mountain to get Emma and Sophie, before getting back to HQ four and a half hours after I landed. I was hot, headachy and dehydrated, so got a few liters of water down me and then off to bed.
Today’s task has changed the leader board – Laurie landed after a few kms and Kirsty is now winning the comp. Ruth had the hardest flight of her life, but came third today, landing only 5km from goal.
P.S. last night’s kayaking was a hoot. We got there and were all allocated a single or double kayak. I went out with Jordi, the comp medic, and soon the lake was filled with the sound of giggling, singing and people playing kayak dodgems. Once we were out on the lake, it was magical in the full moon light. We caught up with others who had gone into a side arm of the lake and got drenched by the boys who just can’t resist a water fight. At 12pm, we decided it was time to head back, so we set off. The only problem was that the guys on shore had switched off all the car lights and we couldn’t find the jetty. Calling them didn’t help… there was nobody answering. We eventually found the cars and everyone was either chucked in or splashed so much that we were drenched. But on getting out of the lake, we found the vans abandoned and no rescue boat in sight. With everyone now cold and shivering, we decided we needed to get back and dry. My spare clothes were mostly wet, but at least I had a dry pair of shorts. The vans luckily had keys in them, so we commandeered one of them and set off. It’s such a heap of old junk it couldn’t get up any inclines and every time we came to a hill we all had to get out and walk and/or push the van. Bearing in mind that most of the women were in underwear, we made quite a sight. We got back at 1am.
Turns out that the organiser guys had come back in the rescue boat after we had left, counted the kayaks and realised three people were missing, so had to search the lake to find them, while we were all off to bed!
Thursday, 26th August 2010 (UK)
Geoff writes: oh, it’s still raining. And has been all day.
But indications are that it might get a lot better from tomorrow. On the other hand, it is a Bank Holiday weekend, so the weather forecasters are probably doing their bit for the UK economy, and lying.
Wednesday, 25th August 2010 (UK)
Geoff writes: what can I say? It’s raining….. we really should start a new category for rain.
Wednesday, 25th August 2010 (Spain)
Judith 25 Aug 2010 | : Competitions, Flying
The forecast was for an epic competition day and there were rumors of a task to Organya or Castejon de Sos, which would mean us crossing some pretty big mountains and stunning terrain. Everyone was buzzing and up for it. Unfortunately, the forecast changed and we were suddenly looking at a blue, inverted day with climbs to 1800m only, rising to a possible 2200m later.
It was 90 degrees off when we arrived on launch, but confident that the valley would warm up and bring it on, they set two provisional tasks. One would take us along the ridge, then over the back for a technical cat’s cradle task, landing at the same goal as on task two. The second option was Organya. The west wind kept blowing, but eventually there were launchable phases and the wind dummies were dispatched to check out conditions. They reported NW in the valley and I started to get concerned when I saw Jamie not going forward much heading west and then doing huge oval shaped turns in thermals while he was getting drifted fast east. Ivan was the last wind dummy and he reported the same conditions, so the task was cancelled. A really good, safe decision. Some flew down, some drove. Ariana decided to try the task and landed at Tremp. She was chauffeured back by a 70 year old bloke who couldn’t speak a word of English, but was happy to drive her all the way to camping.
Everyone is chilling out now. There’s a pool party to celebrate scorer Chris’ birthday, then a panel discussion on comp flying. After that we are going to make the most of the full moon by going for a moonlight kayak trip round the lake. I love this comp!
Tuesday, 24th August 2010 (UK)
Geoff 24 Aug 2010 | : Miscellaneous activities, Walking
Geoff writes: well, from reading Judith’s report below, it seems that Spain was marginally better than the UK! Today would have been an epic day here, except for the howling winds, the overdeveloped cumulus, the rain. And it was cold.
To be fair, I managed to avoid most of the rain. Having given up the thought of a short holiday for this week (the further north the better, tomorrow, but I need to be at home on Thursday) I decided to go a bit south and see some castles, which I duly did, visiting Grosmont Castle, and the White Castle (so called, because you can still see some of the white rendering with which most castles were covered, rather than just being the bare rock you see nowadays). I’ve seen the White Castle before, but it is well worth seeing again, if you like castles (otherwise, don’t bother). Both of them are Norman, of course, and built to support their move into Wales.
Following a bit of a walk, a slow drive back via Hay Bluff – a beautiful place, as well as a flying site (but, of course, way too windy for anyone today). No rain until the drive home.
Judith’s tracklogs from the comp are on our XC page.