The day didn’t look too good as I popped my head out of the tent. High cirrus and a bit gray. With all the rain the night before, my expectation was that it would overdevelop early. As it turned out it brightened up by midday and a task was set. A 43K task from Woodrat-Rabies-Burnt-Grants-Trovine. The clouds over the cascades and to the South of launch were booming by midday but West and North look a just a little overdeveloped.
With not that many pilots in the comp, around 40, the skies were not going to be that busy. I decided to launch later as the thermals were really light and folk were boating over launch for a while not getting high. In fact it turned out that the start was going to be real tough for many. As I prepared for launch and turned on my Digifly vario once again the useless thing had lost its waypoints. This was on a brand new unit that Digifly had sent me after the same thing had happened on the previous unit. I went to my quiet place and reprogrammed all the task waypoints by hand. However it did not save them. Totally pissed. Something really weird about this thing. It is now dubbed the Dodgyfly unit!
I took off and tried to get high in front of launch but it was yo-yo day today. Up and down for 20 minutes along with 3 other pilots with bullets of 1500 ft/min ripping though every so often and not even any of them good enough to take you out the crap bowl and above launch.The race started and I still hadn’t got above launch. It was a 1km start cylinder but that meant just getting above the launch area and back a little to tag Woodrat. A short time later I looked across the valley only to see people scratching real low…comp wings included. Ah frick it…I felt real comfortable in the stability of my new Nova Triton though and decide to call it a day. Even leaving just below launch I chose my target of the winery 2 miles down the valley, Off I set!
There was a strong valley headwind as normal in these parts in the afternoon but I was making reasonable progress until I got about 1000ft over the ground then the wind picked up. Now I was going down rapidily…My iniital choice of winery Longsword turned out to be a god blessing cos I landed at Fiasco instead and the wine there was great!
But more of that later. As I sunk out it became apparent that I wouldn’t be able to cross the power lines which meant landing in a field where 2 dogs were barking like hell and running across to meet me. I moved off to the right and saw them scampering back to their house. Great just need to land now, but my location wasn’t that good being behind some treelines. By this time I was less than 75 ft over the ground and it had become pretty turbulent. I could see the grass bend over flat as if a helicopter was about to land. Down I went..off with the speed bar about 10 ft off the ground, went backward and dropped stone dead to the ground landing flat on my back without getting out my harness…stupid bugger that I was. Opps..I felt that I said to myself. But no damage. Just felt my spine judder. Hmm..Won’t be doing that again methinks!
I bundled up my glider and walked down the cart path I had landed near. Just about getting to the gate out comes a guy and waves me to come across the creek. I walked over and looked down the bank. There was a plank across the river about 12 ft long and 6 inches. wide. So here is me with wing bundled over my shoulder sweating like a pig balancing on a piece of wood crossing a creek. Idiot..Anyways..it went smoothly and I was soon inside the air conditioned tasting room at the Fiasco Winery where Pam and David Palmer were superb hosts to me. Helps that Pam's grandmother was Scottish also! :-) Ah the Scots..what a race we were to sow our seeds worldwide in the old days! People love us!!
So I dished into a food platter, tasted all the wines had a glass of the fantastic Zinfandel and we swapped stories. Turns out Dave is one of the early Hang Glider pilots from the 70’s and has been flying over 30 years! Really nice guy and his wife too. Turns out that Ruch Hass is staying at is house in a B&B so I have an invite to go over for drinks later. Yaba Daba Doo..
Dave gave me a lift back to HQ and I turned in my flight. Turns out I got minimal distance along with another 17 pilots, tested out my new wing in nasty air and felt real comfortable on it and had a great afternoon drinking wine! Sweet.
Only 7 pilots made it to goal. A lot of them got stuck 7km from Grants pass. Kudos to them for getting that far in a strong headwind.
Looking forward to to tomorrow but the thunderstorms are getting earlier.
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