14 Januar 2009

Bogong Cup Day 1: Cancelled due to strong winds

Today we had the first comp day of the Bogong Cup in Mt Beauty. Due to wind speeds of up to 70km/h from NNW, we didnt even go up any mountain to try - turbulences just get too strong. Yet some guys, including Oli, sneaked off to have a flight in a sailplane. Can´t wait to get their report!
I have moved in at the Alpenhorn Motel which provides Jonny and me with great accomodation as a prize of having won last years Bogong Cup! And lucky we have a pool here- temperatures are over 40 degrees today...
On the photo you can see my retrieve team, Sam, Michael and Curtis. Not much driving around today, just a day to catch up with other pilots, do some work and get prepared for hopefully really good flying days starting tomorrow.
Luckily we don´t have any bushfires yet this year, but with strong winds and the heat the risk is extremely high, so there is a "total fire ban" in our area, which means that we sometimes have to use different tracks to the normal ones to get up to take off.
From our living room and balcony, I can see Mt Emu take off, and we will probably go up there tomorrow. It looks blue and blown out, not a single hangglider in the air.
Our German group is smaller than usual this year. Katharina is here to fly as a wind tech and help with the organization, in the comp it is Oli, Lukas, Jonas and me. The Austrians have Gerolf, Michi and Robert here, and I guess the largest non-Australian group is from Russia. Their youngest member Yulia was very successful at the Forbes competition, she finished 13th! A great result for a tough comp.
Young Spanish superhero Blay is here as well - with Forbes he won his first big international competition and impressed everybody. Good to see that there are enthusiastic, talented new pilots in our beautiful sport!

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