Today, the task committee tried to cover all the possibilities with 3 different tasks going in different directions, but once again, the weather did not cooperate and a new task had to be made up on the grid and while the club class was being launched. The problem today was the 40% forecast of thunderstorms and at launch time about 4 shafts of rain could be seen in the SE quadrant. By the time the tail end of the FAI class was launched the shadow from one of the storms was over the airport making it difficult to climb away for the start. Nick and I were the last two on the grid and had a hard time getting started.
Our first turnpoint was on a heading of about 245 and once started we had to run about 330 to get around the storm. This made for a 20 km diversion before we could actually head on course. The run down the first leg once we got around the storm was pretty good, but another problem - high cirrus - started to shade parts of the task area creating large holes. The second turn area was pretty much covered by cirrus and there was no sign of thermals. This meant going deep in the first turn, but to do that there was a 20-30 km hole to cross with no guarantee that you could come back. Derek Mackie took the risk and it worked, netting him the win for the day at 92 km/hr while Joerg, Nick and I came home early by about 25 minutes with about 75 km less distance.
The weather threw another tough hand at us today and we managed to work around it, but had a bunch of landouts and also had a couple of towplanes out on retrieve come back empty because of storms enroute.
The forecast for tomorrow shows 0% chance of rain - I hope it stays that way.
Overall results in the FAI class are Joerg, Nick and me in 1,2,3.
Dave
Our first turnpoint was on a heading of about 245 and once started we had to run about 330 to get around the storm. This made for a 20 km diversion before we could actually head on course. The run down the first leg once we got around the storm was pretty good, but another problem - high cirrus - started to shade parts of the task area creating large holes. The second turn area was pretty much covered by cirrus and there was no sign of thermals. This meant going deep in the first turn, but to do that there was a 20-30 km hole to cross with no guarantee that you could come back. Derek Mackie took the risk and it worked, netting him the win for the day at 92 km/hr while Joerg, Nick and I came home early by about 25 minutes with about 75 km less distance.
The weather threw another tough hand at us today and we managed to work around it, but had a bunch of landouts and also had a couple of towplanes out on retrieve come back empty because of storms enroute.
The forecast for tomorrow shows 0% chance of rain - I hope it stays that way.
Overall results in the FAI class are Joerg, Nick and me in 1,2,3.
Dave
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