The task today for 15 m was a 440 km assigned task. The first leg was down to Laredo, TX on the Mexican border. This first leg was 180 km in length into about a 20 km/hr headwind, oh and it was blue too and just to make it even more challenging, the start height was limited to 3500 ft AGL. Down from our usual 6000 ft AGL.
Today I was able to run with the US pack again and kept with the fast guys at the front of the pack. A few guys dropped back as we climbed away from them, and by the time we had reached Laredo, people were spread out a little bit. Baude Litt in his LS8 was able to keep with us on the entire run to Laredo, and then stayed with us on the next leg north. After the second turnpoint, he went left and we went right and left was the right way to go, if you follow :)
By now our pack was down to 4 from our original 10 and we had trouble centering good thermals and wasted too much time trying to find good cores. On some tries, I would see 6 or 8 kts on the first half turn and then it would disappear. Even with 4 of us looking for the core, it was still hard to find. We pressed on towards the third turn and were able to climb to final glide in about 4 kts 70 km from home. Then it was bump up under the haze domes that were now visible from the sun's backlighting.
LBL who had pushed on ahead of us managed to core one of the good thermals and was rewarded with a 7 kt climb that put him 3 km/hr faster than the rest of our pack. That makes 2 day wins for the LS8 in the 15 m class!
Dave
Today I was able to run with the US pack again and kept with the fast guys at the front of the pack. A few guys dropped back as we climbed away from them, and by the time we had reached Laredo, people were spread out a little bit. Baude Litt in his LS8 was able to keep with us on the entire run to Laredo, and then stayed with us on the next leg north. After the second turnpoint, he went left and we went right and left was the right way to go, if you follow :)
By now our pack was down to 4 from our original 10 and we had trouble centering good thermals and wasted too much time trying to find good cores. On some tries, I would see 6 or 8 kts on the first half turn and then it would disappear. Even with 4 of us looking for the core, it was still hard to find. We pressed on towards the third turn and were able to climb to final glide in about 4 kts 70 km from home. Then it was bump up under the haze domes that were now visible from the sun's backlighting.
LBL who had pushed on ahead of us managed to core one of the good thermals and was rewarded with a 7 kt climb that put him 3 km/hr faster than the rest of our pack. That makes 2 day wins for the LS8 in the 15 m class!
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