Rat Race Sprint Task 1–Launch, Squires, Burnt, SugarL, Burnt, Cemetry, Donato - 42Km

Today was the first task in the Sprint race. Weather conditions were looking good with top of lift around 6500 with stronger winds above at 8000 ft in excess of 20mph. The task was called and it was pointed out that it was the longest task the sprint has had. At 42Km this was the type of task I was looking for again, not too long and not too short. Not that I have made goal yet but the longer the task means that more people are spread out and the air is less congested.

The sprint always follows the Race in this event, at least to my memory, and this meant the start was scheduled for 2:15 with 3 start gates to spread out the pilots even more. This was not an issue today as there was plenty of lift around launch. I launched at 2:00pm and quickly got to base which was nice. Still was a little windy but once at base I only had 3 minutes before the race started which was even better! No hanging around in the sky for an hour or so.

A lot of people had drifted back behind launch with the thermal and got to base while I had pushed out to the valley a little and then thermaleld up to base. This meant I was positioned well for entering the 1.5Km start cylinder around Squires and then onto tag the first point which was again Squires with a 0.4Km cylinder.

Prior to the task I had outlined my plan to a few other pilots. Get high at launch, glide to tag first waypoints and back, get high at launch again, transition to Burnt, get high again, push out to Rabies ridge, follow the ridge around to the peak, get high again move out to Sugar L gliding and returning to the ridge again  to rabies then over to Burnt, get high and glide to Donatos.

The plan went pretty darn well today I have to admit. In fact I was leading all the way out to SugarL. Once on Rabies ridge it took a while to find lift. I was flying straight over the ridge get about 100 ft/min up. I got high over the peak and pushed out to SugarL. I arrived there too low for my liking and had to scratch around a while with not that many landing sites that looked good. However, with the West wind I managed to find a screamer that took me back to cloud base. It was quite funny flying back to Rabies ridge with a lot of folks flyng towards me!!! That’s what you get for being in front I guess.

Only mishap I had today was at cloudbase where there was a cloud that did throw my wing about pretty violently as I passed by the side of it. Nice to see the whispies for a change.

I transitioned to Burnt and still could only see one other glider flying with me. When I got to Burnt I noticed a whole bunch flying low below me. I thought where the heck did these folks come from>? Turns out it was the Race pilots on there way back looking for lift at Burnt.

They quickly found it as they saw me hitting a good one and climbing fast. I had a good chuckle to myself looking down on boom 9’s and IP6’s climbing up below me. I  was cranked pretty hard over trying to keep the tight circle that these guys were flying and stay above them but it was not to be. They quickly gained ground on me and I had to give way leaving the lift at around 5200ft.

By now there were about 5 gliders of the Sprint that had caught up with me. I saw Rich Hass and Randy close by as we all now looked for lift. I wasn’t getting that high and when I saw Rich push out again I followed him. We both arrived near Cemetery low and had to look for lift. It was very light. I saw Rich go even lower and I decide to saucer my way to the next ridge.

When I got there there were only weak bubbles and nothing to take me higher. I landed in a nice big field like a butterfly. 1:45min in the air and 32.7Km travelled on task. At last that’s what my Flymaster said.

Turns out that it registered that I had hit Cemetery even though I hadn’t. Going to talk to that with Jug today! I got picked up by Sarge in the bus and headed off to goal to pick up more pilots. I couldn’t believe it when I heard that Rich Hass had once again made a low save and got to goal! Darn it. He came in 3rd so it was a little disheartening to know that I could have been in the top 5 today also.

Never mind, tomorrow is another day!

Rat Race–Task 1–Launch-WoodRat-Rab PK-Woodrat-Cemetry-Donato - Sprint Cancelled

 

Finally after 3 days the bad weather let up for us to get up to launch and wait it out until the clouds cleared. And it did take a while. It was 5PM before the actual launch for the Race was set with 3 start gates as the cloud cover was so low, around 4000ft which is just above launch. Due to the lateness of the day, the Sprint was cancelled and the flyers were given the opportunity of either taking off before the Race started and landing soon after, or wait until the Race closed. I chose to launch after the Race window closed so I could see the race unfold.

It was an ideal day for the live broadcasting as all the wings could easily be seen from launch. Gever and Jug did a great job of covering the event although we did have some connection issues as the tower we transmit to was in cloud the whole day.

It was a real struggle for the Race pilots and none made goal. The furthest out they got was 22Km on course of the 38Km set. As cloud was so low they had to keep out of it and a couple of boom 9’s had some issues trying to stay out. Interesting tactics by a few of the pilots also. Josh Cohn headed left of launch and down the Applegate valley to get to the sunniest part of the valley and eventually slowly but surely climbed to base. Others like Preacher waited on launch right past the start window until the sun had reached most of the valley and initially followed the route taken by Josh. However, en route, he saw folks climbing in the valley and went there instead which went well for him and he got up. Folks saw this and soon we had a gaggle in the middle of the valley. Meanwhile a lot of gliders had already sunk out. Those who managed to make it to the Rabie’s Peak TP  and transitioned to Burnt soon found that there was nothing but sink and a few boom 9’s along with other wings landed in Hunters LZ.

By this time it was now ok for the Sprint pilots to launch and have a free flight. The wind on launch had now basically gone to calm and the sunshine in the valley had disappeared. However, there were a lot of gliders managing to stay up and float around mid launch. I took off and joined them practicing turning right and having fun working the ridge lift. After a time I headed out to Longswords and was surprised by how boaty it was. I played with the speed bar on the way out and easily made Longswords even though I was only ever around 3300ft (launch is 3800). I flew past the winery then turned and went back to Fiasco to land there. I had never landed at Fiasco before but since my host for the week is Dave the owner, I thought it would be fun to land there. I landed right next to the tent but did drop the last 15 ft pretty darn quick, my legs absorbing the shock of landing such that I ended up with my butt on the ground for a short time.

Iain Landing at Fiasco

After that it was off to get LeAnn’s phone fixed at the local AT&T store then back to Jacksonville to join the rest of the Seattle crew celebrating Jeff Slotta’s birthday.

Thursday is looking sunny but windy but we will get to fly, so game on for today!

Rat Race 2013 – Practice Day–22nd June

So here we are again at the Rat Race! This will be my 6th time here and it’s the 3rd time they are having both a Sprint and a Race competition during the week. This year I elected to fly in the Sprint as a lot of the Seattle crew had so much fun flying in the shorter Sprint format last year with EN B and EN C wings and not having to  compete with the XC gods on their hot IP6’s EN D’s. Also thought I would actually compete for a change and see how well I do in the shorter Sprint format. Also set myself a little challenge to actually get to goal this year by having a side bet with Jeff Slotta, John Schnebeck and Ralph Borium. For each km on course distance I get greater than each of them during each task of the comp, they pay me a dollar. Likewise for each Km distance on course they get on me I pay them a dollar. So, If we all make goal nobody pays anybody anything and we square up at the end of the week. If Jeff beats me by  say 10 Km and I beat Ralph and John by 5Km then I’m not out of pocket. So I have an added incentive to fly well this year.

Practice day is really just a way of ensuring that you find any issues with your gear prior to actually starting the real comp and a way to get any nerves out your system. I also used the day to configure the live streaming on launch and I’m glad we did. We had a few buffering issues as we weren't getting the uploaded bandwidth that I had last year so it was good to actually find that out and then configure the equipment appropriately. So now we are set for the live streaming when ever we start the first real task, which looking at the weather may be Thursday, sad to say. To get notified when we start streaming just go to the ustream web site for the Rat Race PG and click follow. We normally start streaming around 11:00am.

The weather on Saturday was great and the number of people here on practice day were in excess of 100. They set a task for the Race and Sprint competitors with the Race starting first. This mean that the Race folks all have to launch before the Sprint competitors get to launch. It seems a bit strange to me as it means that the Sprint competitors are all launching in stronger conditions.

The task for the sprint was a short 15Km around the Valley - Woodrat Start  2km exit – Rabies Peak 2Km – Off-RG 2Km – Woodra 2Km – Longswords goal. I was in line and about the 8th person to get off the hill. It’s a right hand day and not one I like but it didn’t bother me too much.

Iain launching custom Nova Ra, Yip, it’s the Scottish flag

However the air was pretty rowdy over launch..I was following a couple of gliders who were taking really large circles and falling out and in of the thermals which didn’t please me either. I let them go wide and turned a little tighter and soon I was about 800 over launch and above them and now flying with another couple of gliders who were doing the same. On one turn I saw Rich Hass head out to mid launch and thought what a good idea. I’ll go there get up and out. So I left the lift and followed him. Oops what a cardinal sin that was leaving lift. I got into the sink of the thermal and sank at 2.6m/s all the way to mid launch. I then spent the next 30 minutes scratching and not being able to get back up. Meanwhile, Rich had taken the lee side of the hill and managed to get one that took him up and out leaving me the only one to land in the Hunter LZ. Ah well, guess I won’t be doing that again if I want to save some dollars on my bet!

Most folks got up high and made the course easily as once above 7500 they easily glided the course.

Ok..so here’s hoping the weather changes soon and we get a chance to fly. Meanwhile, staying at the vineyard with Dave and Pam Palmer, owners of Fiasco winery has been great and they have a beautiful old property where the woodpeckers, chipmunks and ground squirrels wake you up around 6am every morning. Very cool.

So let’s now just wait for a good day to fly.