Day 2

DAY 2

A more consistent day, a little stronger, bit with a little sting at the first turnpoint. A set speed task, 338km for Std and 15m, and 319km for Open/18m.

The task setting is quite good, compliments to Alan Barnes for this. Each day you feel like you are being tested, certainly not a lot of start tactics.

Cloudbase was again about 4500ft but it felt a little stronger today. The lift was stronger close to cloudbase so you had to be careful not to expose yourself to collision risk.

Given that the day ends sometime between 3:30-4:00pm, a 338Km tasks was going to take 3-3:5 hours, so a start between 12-12.30 seemed likely. The gate opened just after 12”05 so there was a tendency to rush off. I controlled myself and started at 12:15pm at the same time as Lisa Trotter and just before Miles Gore Brown.

The first leg was great, lots of streeting, good pull ups, something like 130kph for the  first 60km. Then it turned bad. Going in to the first turn at Chinchilla the clouds were broken, overcast and still lots of water on the ground. It was a real struggle, trying to stay up but moving forward to escape form the bad country. The toll at Chinchilla appears to be about 6 gliders. Unfortunately Tim Wilson and out own John Nicholls succumbed. John eventually fired up his engine, whilst Tim spent 25 minutes below 900ft before finally landing n the only paddock close to the turn. A few others landed on Chinchilla airfield and a couple at an agi strip. Kerry Claffey landed in a paddock but their car sank through the surface crust and it took quite some time of pushing and tree branches etc before they finally made it out.

Meanwhile, those of us who survived continued into improving conditions – still a bit tricky but the occasional good climb of 6 knots.

Lisa and I were still together to the second trip but conditions down the next leg were a little unreliable. Good looking clouds but thermals were a little inconsistent and many people fell off the bottom of the gaggle, only to catch up again a little later.

Around Tara I as a little low and then joined by Alan Barnes who had been hanging on to the bottom of he gaggle for some time. We eventually found a good climb and the rest of the flight was just good and fast. We had one great climb which pushed the thermal above the normal convection level and we had to push below the next two clouds. Around the last turn we were still about 1000 ft below glide, plus an allowance for the bugs. A glider in front pulled up under the next good cloud, and after a couple of re-centres I had 6-7 knots.

Alan Barnes pushed ahead working on the rule that the first one to leave gets home first. I took a safety margin of 1000-1500 ft and flew home at 100-120 knots, passing Alan about 5 km before the finish.

Peter Trotter and Craig Collings left a little earlier and together with Mike Durrant had a better third leg than us.

In 18m class, Graham Parker won the day at 114kph (handicap).

Tonight was Simon Brown’s birthday and he shouted pizza and beer and wine around the pool at his motel – a very pleasant night.

Talk of thunderstorms tomorrow.