The forecast said light northerlies which would turn more westerly during the day. We decided to go to the Lawley, but stopped on the way at the Mynd. There it was SSW. The odd waft would come from the west, so we elected to stay there. Lots of others turned up and the sky looked fantastic. The cloud development looked like it should be booming everywhere. It wasn’t.

People got up basically one at a time, the rest slope landing or landing back on top. There were no birds to indicate thermals and people seemed to be getting up better in the wind after the thermal than in the warm bit before. A guy from up north was the first to go, followed later by Kai, then half an hour later by someone else.

I had a frustrating day. I wasn’t thermalling very well and kept losing out on the climbs, having to walk back up from low on the ridge several times, getting very hot and sweaty in the process. Geoff was also not doing well, bottom landing at one point. He did get up in a thermal later, got to base and headed off over the back (for a glide straight to the ground at Wenlock Edge). I tried to get in it, but launched too late. The thermals today were hard to work. Because the wind was light, I found it difficult to judge in which direction they were drifting and they would shift as they climbed through different layers of warm air at altitude. This is normal, but they seemed to be shifting in unpredictable directions and wide circles to find them again didn’t seem to work for me at all.

By 4.30pm, we could see Kai coming back over launch after a big triangle flight. He added insult to injury by thermalling up again and heading over the back on what looked like a second XC. He thermalled up under a great looking cloud, but it was too far along the ridge to get to it in the light conditions. When it came closer I decided to go for a do-or-die glide towards it. I hit lots of sink on the way, and got very low over a farm house, but they had a fire going and I thermalled over the fire for a while. It never kicked off a proper thermal, but it allowed me to glide back towards launch to a different cloud which was nearer. I didn’t make it to the launch and landed 20 yards from the fence in high bracken, which got tangled in my lines. By this time I was hot, bothered and just wanted to throw it all in the bag and go home. Geoff had only got to Wenlock Edge as he found no lift over the back, and it seemed that it just wasn’t my day.

I was too lazy to walk the glider all round the perimeter of the fence so I found a tiny grassy bit, layed out, waited for a breeze and took off. I flew straight over the top landing, intending to call it a day when I hit strong lift. It took me to 1200 ATO. I had to take three thermals to break through to get higher but eventually got to 2200 ATO, at which point I lost the thermal. I went on a glide and hit zeros on the way to Wenlock Edge. I drifted along a bit, but was down at Haddon, which is short of Wenlock Edge by some kilometers. The kind farmer offered me a lift to Church Stretton, where I met Geoff and we got a ride back to the Mynd from a guy from Wentnor. I was pleased to get away and glad I didn’t give up in the end; shame I didn’t get away sooner/further.

Committee meeting at Bridgnorth in the evening and I got a ride from Mark L. in his open top Porsche. Very cool.

Geoff’s tracklog on XC page.

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