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.