A Sad Sad day.

Friday was the last day of the competition. It was one of the best days we had for racing. I especially enjoyed it because Chris, Brett and I flew a lot of the course together.

The 3 Canadians did good. The 3 musketeers, the 3 brothers, the 3 best friends are only 2 now. As I sit and write this, so many things don’t matter anymore. Plans have forever changed and life will never be the same.

I had the privilege and honour of knowing Chris Muller for 16 years. We shared many experiences over the years. It was awesome to have flown with him, to have traveled with him, to have spent time with him…

He went out on a high and will forever be 29 years old.

See you again when my time comes. I hope that my life is as filled with experience as yours was. I love you bro and will miss you.

Decent Day

Yesterday started out pretty nice. The clouds started popping, lift was forecast to be above cloudbase, little or no wind. The task was the typical race around the swamp. Last year, we always did it counter-clockwise, but this time we did it clockwise.

Two days ago, they extended the time between the launch opening and the start opening by 15 minutes. Yesterday, we only had to go 6 km to get to the entry radius. This basically meant that we had to wait around for 45 minutes to start. Everyone and their dogs were at cloudbase just floating around waiting and waiting. The start opened at 1:45 and a large group went. I decided that I would take the next start. I didn't know what Brett, Chris and Johnny were doing because my PTT was messed up and didn't work.

The first leg took us south to highway junction. It was quite easy as we stayed really high. We caught some of the stragglers of the first start in the first 15 km of the course. As I was gliding into the turnpoint, I was trying to "skim" the outside of the cylinder. I watched the Compeo count down... .45km, .43km, .40km and then count up... .41km, .43km... I had missed the cylinder by less than 10 meters! So I had to turn around. I lost enough altitude with this manouver that I missed the next climb while the gaggle I was with topped out.

From there I was in catch up mode. I did well and caught up with the gaggle I was with by the last turn point. Again, however, I was a little lower and didn't get the final climb. At the last turnpoint, the compeo said I had goal. I didn't believe it. It was nearly 30 km away and the clouds looked like crap. I took a really crappy climb for another 1000 ft, and the dang thing said I had it again. Being 20 km away at this point, I decided to believe it, only to watch my numbers fall apart. I stopped 7 km out for 500 ft and then raced into goal. Crossed the line with enough height to turn back into the wind and land.

We're sorry, we are experiencing technical difficulties, please try your flight again.

The title pretty much sums up the day for both Chris and I. Brett dun good yesterday and was fourth to cross the line.

There was a whole slew of weak link failures yesterday. Glen Volk came off the dolly, broke a weak link and cartwheeled on the ground. He was 2 ahead of me in line. So I had to wait for them to "clear the wreakage." He didn't break anything and was fine. Then the guy in front of me did the same thing! More "clear the wreakage" time. By the time I finally finished my tow, I was all alone as if I had been the first to launch.

My tug pilot dropped me off at exactly 2000ft. I really didn't think anything of it as I was in a thermal climbing slowly. At about 2500ft, I noticed that there was a guy 200ft above me, still on tow, still climbing...

We had nearly 45 minutes to kill before the start time. The radius was only 5 miles. I sat on the boarder at cloudbase for 20 minutes. I decided that I would take the early start today. With all the debacle with weaklink breaks, I couldn't find Brett or Chris in the air. I heard over the radio that they were going to take the second start. Hindsight tells me I should have waited. They used the markers from the first start and caught up in no time.

I unfortunately got very low after the first turn point. Before that, I was flying out in front with Nene and Phil and a few others. It was a completely different feeling to have a glider that performed as well as what those guys are flying. It made it "easier" to keep up. I guess the pace got too fast, I got low. Grovelled for about 30 minutes trying to get out of a hole. Crazy thing was that the day was so good that I did my final glide from the last turn point straight into goal. 20km away at 5800ft or a 11:1 glide. My instrument was telling me that I would come over goal at 230 ft at best glide given the current wind.

Chris on the other hand had a different issue. When he checked his vario/gps combination yesterday morning, it said that it was 1/2 full of power. Well, we are guessing that it was 1/2 full on the backups. Just before the first turn point, it went dead! Chris then had to basically follow people into the turn points, or at least what he thought would be a turn point! The whole time, he was also wondering whether he had turned on his back up!

Back on track.

Looks like the Canadian boys redeemed themselves a little yesterday. The forecast was for a day that was worse than the previous, but looking up at the sky, things were shaping up. There was more cirrus, so we knew it would be about timing.

They pushed back the Flex wing start time 15 minutes yesterday. I think that this was so that the Flexies wouldn't embarrass the ridgids too much.

Brett won the race on the ground running his glider over to the launch line up the fastest. It was pretty funny watching him position himself while others were arguing. Chris said that he was the last glider to launch but that didn't seem to make a difference as he was at the start on time.

It was funny, just before the start, as I topped out each thermal, I kept thinking, that I am in a good position, only to look to the East and see someone either further upwind or closer to the edge of the start gate.

Yesterday, I decided that I would fly faster and "keep up" with the other guys. The previous two days, I think that I was too worried about landing, instead of flying the course, and kept falling behind. The decision worked out well for me. The previous two days, I kept forgetting that I have a glider that is probably as good or better than most of the field giving me a little more room for error. The Litespeed is climbing well, and so far, I haven't lost anything on glide.

The shade showed up at the same time and same place as the previous day... right before the turnpoint. I was experiencing deja vu. Oh by the way, the task was in the same direction as the day before, only shorter.

At the turnpoint, I thought that I had fallen behind, so I started to push even though there was shade (impatience at it's best). This worked out for me as I got into the bottom of a climb that the rest of the gaggle I was with didn't. We had a bit of a tail component coming into goal, but I still waited for the vario to tell me that it was only a 7.5:1 glide into goal.

My final glide was from 14 km out and I did it at about 100 km/h. That was when I wasn't blowing up from either PIO or the turbulence. Two guys beat me in because I couldn't keep the glider going straight. Something that I will have to work on, or God forbid raise my sprogs...

Chris and Paris had a race into goal neck and neck. It was right to the ground. I heard that Brett came in over Chris's leading edge and was planning on flying in front of him and pimp him at the line. He then had second thoughts as he wasn't sure when Chris was going to pull up, or worse yet loop over the goal line!