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.