Wrap up

Friday was a scrub but the final day, Saturday was flyable and we were set a 270kms task up to Savines, down to Mezel (near Digne) and home via Orpierre. The issue for the day was when to start as a band of cirrus was due to pass through late afternoon...

One of the start gaggles

The start gaggle held on and on as it looked like the therms were slowly working their way up, but we eventually set off around 1430. It was, for once, fairly straightforward getting into the mountains and onto Coupe. The way up to Savines was along the Parcour and went well, as did the return trip which involved arriving on Dormillouse at 7000' and flying along, gaining height to arrive at Trois Eveches at around 9500'. Then the fun started. The cirrus had arrived and for those laggards amongst us who are slow, speed was further degraded as the therms were dying. A glide round Mezel led to Vaumuse and a crawl up to Authon, onto Gache and a slow glide across the valley to Chabre. The winners of the day were instead able to glide round Mezel, straight across the valley to the Lure, take a therm and nip up round Orpierre and be on glide for home. I instead scratched away behind Chabre then dropped into the West facing cliff-faces at the end of the Lure and scraped up to the ridge line, drop off the back and creep away 300metres below glide. A weak therm, and then a line of weak wave on the East of the Durance valley let me get back though, with a princely 90 metres in hand on arrival.  

Nipping up Coupe on the way to the first turn

So - that was that. I had a fabulous experience and learnt shed loads. I also wound up rather liking Vinon and will go back there for a comp again.

Sixieme

Launching into 8/8 cirrus and a strong South Easterly. Deep Joy.

Oh for goodness sake. Another very difficult day to get started and into the mountains: several people gave up and didn't try. On the plus side I made it into the perimeter of St Auban today (on the way out - again, all of 25kms javelin throw ) and took a relight to go flying in the mountains where the South Easterly wave was good to 11,000' North of Digne.
Vinon is a great airfield, the people here are fabulous but I detest the local meteorology!

V

1h 30m AAT Serres/Savines.

Couldn't get high before the start, hit the spuds after 25kms and 500m short of St Auban's airfield. Bugger.
At least the glider is OK (not for want of trying to break it today).

Quatre

A grid in sunshine: again.




Eta: gosh those wings are long.

 To quote the competition website "A very difficult day with an air mass not so good as expected !!!".

Quite. It all conformed to the lore that the day after mistral is often not good. The 15's had a 303km out and return to Plampinet and the forecast was for 4-6kt therms to 14,000' near Briancon. The start thermals were densely populated but well behaved and I started at 3pm. The first climb near Puimosson was 2-3kts once I'd found it (helped by the determination not to land at Puimosson for another bollocking) and from there it was on to the high ground and just on to the top of Coupe and the Par Cours. A good run along the Par Cours with a bunch of other gliders led us on to Morgon at Ridge top height and across to Guillaume arriving just above the trees. It was pretty busy with c15 gliders creeping up the face but again everyone was disciplined. The climb pretty much stopped at ridge top height so we slid off and across the top of St Crepin airfield and on to the Eastern slopes of the Durance valley. I just could not climb above 7200' here despite seeing a few gliders higher up. I assume it was a strong inversion and I failed to find the punchy one to get up. I spent two hours trying though, switching ridges, sides of the valley etc etc. At one point the Flarm anti-collision fired when I didn't expect it and a Robin tug flashed past then started S turning above the wooded slopes below me at which point I realised there'd been an incident and I cleared out the way (on return we found out Giorgio Galetto of Italy had crashed but, thank goodness, has only light injuries. Get Well soon Giorgio).





Around 1830 I gave up 18kms short of the turn and thought about heading South. I've 4 days holiday left and nothing to prove so couldn't see the point of increasing the risk for one turnpoint. Of course as soon as I got to Prachaval Jay found me 8kts to 9000' but the decision was made and rather than try again we set off for Guillaume. A really slow 0.8kt climb here to 7000' put me in glide for Gap so I staggered off towards there, found another 0.6kts on the way and finally got on glide for Sisteron which is where we landed for an aerotow retrieve, finally arriving at Vinon at 2125hrs. That was a LONG day.   




On tow back from Sisteron: don't the LX screens work well! 

 

Hunk of the Day: Jay Rebbeck

Jay from Essex, 17, will be recognised by some readers from series 11 of "Big Brother". Currently auditioning for the next series of  "House" thanks to his Healthcare credentials, Jay is sponsored by Chanel sunglasses for this competition.

Troisieme

8 and a bit knots abeam good ol' Serres

The Mistral had cleared the humid air away and today we had a 25-30 knot Northwesterly on the ground. The 15M task was North to Col de Cabre, down to Dignes and back North east to Savines then home.We launched at 1300hrs and were required to stay below 2000m until the start opened. There was wave pretty much right over the site so when the start line opened it was easy to pop up to the airspace limit of 11,500', but tricky to work out who was 15M and who was starting (there are no start announcements made on the radio either). I started at the airspace limit and ran up to the Lure and into 7 knots of wave in the Jabron valley. From there I reckoned to jump up to the Chabre and wave hotspot at Rosans, but failed to get a really good wave climb and instead dropped down out of the wave to turn Col de Cabre and run the ridges past Serres and across to Sisteron. At least today I was with a few other gliders for some of the time and that helped mark the good climbs which made for a good run round. At 106kph I thought I might have done OK, but the winning speed of 126kph put paid to that hope and I finished up 21st for the day out of the 29 competitors. 



The view from GA looking up towards Mt Blanc

 

Geoff had  a storming run round and came 7th in his 18M class but Russell and Mike had less luck and indeed Mike landed out at les Crots 85 miles North of Vinon. The retrieve was 170 miles there and back but we did it, including derig, in 3 hours. I love French motorways!



57 a trouve un bonne champ. Bon Travail M. Jeune

 

 Hunk of the day: Phil Jeffreys

Phil, 107, from Cambridge enjoyed several years as the TV face of a popular fishfingers brand and still vigorously denies those salacious press rumours. He now enjoys lawnmowing and shaving as his pastimes. 

La Suite

The day dawned humid and pretty grey so there weren't many hopes riding anyway. However, at briefing the 15M class was asked to grid and duly did, sat around for a while in the hope of a weather window and then scrubbed at 1400hrs. That gave plenty of time to put things away, potter round the lake on boats or mountain bike or snatch a siesta and then congregate for a BBQ at Chez Jon/Geoff. A few games of table tennis, boules and drink the local Rose and consume vast quantities of burnt meat made for a very pleasant evening. Tomorrow threatens to be a bit of a wave day which sounds rather good fun.

Hunk of the day: Mike Young

Mike, 23, whose hobbies include trampolining and pole dancing is always easy to spot with his flourescent tips.

La Premiere Jour

The task: 300kms set going North to Roche Ram ( near St Crepin)/Col de Cabre (near Serres) and home.

Jay Rebbeck had sage words for me before the start: it looks tricky getting to the high stuff so it might be best to go with other gliders for the first 50kms. That sounded like excellent advice so I hung around in the start until 3 pm and set off when I thought a couple of others were starting.

Cloudbase was not great at c5000amsl near Dignes and running the start of the Par Cours was interesting but worked. The really exciting bit was pushing on to Seynes and nipping over a saddle to find the next climb. After that things perked up and the run past Dormillouse, Morgon and Guillaume all felt like familiar territory but man I was SLOW compared to the guys that know what they're doing. I also made life harder than it needed to be by flopping onto a ridge next to Sisteron at 2500' amsl or 800' above the town which is a tad low, but the valley breeze was working well as evidenced by the flags flying on the citadel battlements . 78kph is pathetic really when compared to the winning speeds of 115kph but I got more for my money from the day.
Geoff struggled manfully round but had to fire his turbo 19kms short of the field: a heroic effort nonetheless. By the time we'd put covers on and tided up it was 9.30 so Pork chops and Frites at the onsite restaurant and a couple of pressions seemed in order. All in all a fun day out!

Hunk of the day: Russell

Russell, 21, from Nottingham enjoys long walks and flower arranging. He's never short of a well arranged bunch.