Pre-Race day – Not a good one

The day looked to be promising and I was eager to go back out flying and get some more air time down here but as it turned out it was not to be.!I decided to wait a little longer on launch until the clouds that were forming and were becoming increasing overdeveloped and broke up. and got higher. Cloud base was only at 9200 today around launch area. Also since it was a Saturday there were many more people about. I should have guessed things weren't;t going to go my way when my dicky tummy gave one final motion and urged me woodward again. On the way back my sun glass lens fell out and I had to go around launch asking folks for dental floss so I could put it back in. That took more time than I thought. Great time to get off the hill. It was close to 12:00pm and the rest of the Seattle crew had already left for the skies. But looking up just above launch there were about 40 gliders tightly grouped and not going anywhere fast. Ok another 15 minutes and things seemed to be improving i thought. Time to go. I already had my wing bunched up and ready to launch so got on launch and brought it up about 5 ft and checked that things looked good and set it back down. We are off! Nice rotation turned and launched but kept veering right and heard shouts of Knot Knot from the folks below. By this time I was already in the air and heading for the trees on the right. Big weight shift left and started to go left but slowly. Looking up I could see the b and c lines had a not towards the trailing edge and I had a v-notch in my wing. Bummer!!!! What to do. I tried to tugging hard on the lines but to no avail. At least the wing was flying but with major left correction. No other choice but to land out in the Piano Lz. Of course midday Valle is pretty thermic and I had to ride straight though a few thermals getting to the LZ. As it turned out the Ra S performed very well again. I have found this wing to be very stable and when things go wrong its pretty benign. I landed at the LZ without incident only looking up at the gliders in the sky feeling very envious. As it turns out when i got a lift back to town, not many folks had a good flight at all. The low cloud base left quite a few of the experienced pilots feeling frustrated as well as me. Not a bad day really to have a knot. another lessons learned I will be checking more diligently tomorrow when the actual comp begins!!!