Nick's Day 9.

Nick, ST - Day 9, 14 Aug

Another long and challenging day. Few Cus to start and slow at improving. Very few Cus on the first leg, with the first turn under cirrus. It was best to wait a while for the area to fill in.  When I got good height, 7000', in a gaggle I went back to the corner of the start and was on my way at 14:00.

I went along the leg on the upwind side for two reasons: first, the CU alignment seemed better, and a no go zone to the west could prove a problem if you got too close, and of course the wind blows you back on the course line when thermalling.  Went into the turn low as I couldn't find good lift, and found good short streets of clouds on the second leg. The second point was in the blue and I pushed in low, to thermal after the upwind turn. This leg and the next proved quite frustrating, as I was caught up and passed by 4 groups of gliders. The cruise speed was between 100 to 110 kts. after the third point, we headed up into the hills and it looked like the density of CU diminished the further north you went. There were still enough CUs marking good lift to the fourth turn, but after that there were long stretches of blue. It was best to get high! Because of the sun angle, I could see quite a few flashes of wings on the horizon ahead. I didn't really want to go downwind of the track, but that's where the few CUs were. I took climbs to cloudbase, which was now over 9000' because the turnpoint was under heavy cirrus, with no clouds. After the turn, It looked bleak under the cirrus. I went for some dark grey clouds which proved useless. There was one cloud way to the south west, but I thought it might be too close to the zone. I saw a wisp to the east and turned 90 degrees for it. I got 1000' out of it and headed towards the sun to the south east. I saw a Diana ahead below, but there wasn't much there, so I moved a bit to the side and found some reasonable lift to 7500', almost good enough for final glide. I found another 500' and was home free. It turns out the wind had diminished significantly and I didn't need that 500' and should have skipped it! 598 km at 122km/H.