Nick - Day 1

Nick, ST - Day 1, 5 Aug

A text message from the weatherman to the team captains, relayed by radio, indicated that the sea breeze front would be moving in an hour ahead of time. I decided not to delay and start early.

I hit rain on the last third of the first leg and it was quite overdeveloped to the east. The second leg and third legs were straight forward, but I got passed by the French team. There was a blue hole on the fourth leg and that required a significant detour and the lift was limited to 4 knot average. On the fifth leg, I stayed behind a gaggle to get a good climb and caught up to some gliders that were quite low.  The sixth leg, wasn't working for me. I couldn't connect with lift and clouds were dying in front. I detoured to the right for a climb, and got left behind. I could see the sea breeze in front, with high cloud on one side and low cloud beyond it. You had to climb as high as possible to penetrate the front as it looked bleak beyound it. I climbed to 9000' and headed through the frontal zone. I flew above and through a gap in the low clouds and it was a long glide at basically best L/D 30 km to the turn, and then 66 km at best L/D to the finish in smooth air, hoping I wouldn't hit a patch of sink and have to land short. A challenging day with many land-outs.