Race Day – Task 1.. Oh No…

What a day!. The grand opening of the new toilet they just built on launch was delayed as there was a problem with the water supply. Bummer. Another trip to the woods! :-) Turns out Marc Chirico had built the first toilet there many years ago which is now the extended launch area so as a tribute to you Marc here is the new building to bring a tear to your eye!.They called a 72 Km task which is further than I have ever flown before so it was interesting to see how things turned out. Quite dramatic to say the least is the answer. The launch window opened at 11:30 and for 15 minutes before that anyone could fly so most of the Seattle crew decided to take that opportunity and launch. However, that meant staying in the air for 1hr 15 minutes before the race even started, A daunting enough task for me I thought.

I got to the launch area to see Mer take off and I set up on the far right of the launch area an prepared to launch. Launch was pretty well organized and I found that there were only a couple of others ready to launch including John although I did not know at the time but I was soon to find out!

I got the go to launch turned and had a good take off but then….what the hell..a pilot had also just launched from the far left and was on a collision course. I turned to the right and our wings crossed each other sliding off each other. i took some deformation but managed to get it back on track. The other pilot was flying fine..Phew… a real close call. And when I looked at the other pilot it was none other than John Mann my buddy. Wow.. were we lucky…..now that was over I thought so let’s go fly the course.

The weather was a high pressure system and cloud base was only just over 9000ft. It was pretty rowdy and having a lots of pilots in the air at low level was pretty intimidating. After a while I headed off to the Penon and soared up the front face before heading to the Wall. The Wall is a vertical cliff face that extends behind the Penon. For whatever reason I had a hard time getting up from there and got trashed a few times as I headed too far back inland with not enough height. After about 15 minutes and recovering from some deflations and seeing another pilot stall his wing and other plots managing to make it up heigh and get out I decided to go back out in front of the wall in the valley and try and get some lift from there. I did eventually find lift but from a very low height and made a good save to get back up and ready to head to the start! Yes the start! It seemed like I had been flying all day by this time. However I headed back to the start and found a nice convergence line and got lift all the way. I tagged the start and then headed back the way I had came. Taking this route meant I had caught up with most of the main group of pilots as they had headedto the penon and then to the wall. I shortcutted that route by flying straight to crazy thermal location as it is called.  I caught the crazy thermal site and yip it is as rough and as crazy as it gets. I got some stonking thermals in there, well in excess of 1300ft/min and got up high enough to see for the first time the whole flying topography of Valle de Bravo. wow. What a sight indeed. I headed of to the next waypoint flying over a few ridges  a little too low and getting worked by the turbulence on the other side. However perseverance prevailed and I got to the first Waypoint Divisa! Woo Hoo. Yeah baby. On to the next  waypoint Lapila. I enjoyed this glide as I found a nice convergence line and got to the waypoint with not really much thermalling. Another waypoint tagged. Things were looking good. I headed back to the next waypoint but started sinking out. I got another low save about 300 ft above a cone cylinder with corns cobs growing inside of it. Back now to the 3 kings and Mageuy. Here I really got stuck trying to get out and after  about 20 minutes decided to make a dash for Gordo. There I sank out and landed. Over 4 hrs flying!. Man was I tired but what satisfying feeling to have flown so far. I just couldn't wait to get back and log my score.

I arrived back at headquarters and submitted my flight only to find out I hadn’t tagged the start point! WHAT I said, you must be joking right? Nope dead serious. They had a 1km start cylinder with the first waypoint inside that cylinder with a radius of .4km. I hadn’t entered that point on my gps cylinder. What a bummer. as it turns out John Mann and quite a few others made the same fundamental mistake! Crap Crap Crap I said to myself. On reflection though what the heck.. I had a great flight to say the least.

Ah… flying can be so satisfying…and sometimes not!

Looking forward to tomorrows task.