11 Juli 2013

Day 6: 83km around 7 turnpoints

Today we saw low clouds and a strong northerly again. Flying around 7 turnpoints meant a head wind on every other leg of the zig zag course. After a slow start I had a good run for the next three turnpoints, but then it got really difficult. Local knowledge helps a lot in this area... quite a lot of the French pilots made it to goal, also Françoise got in! A really big flight for a light girl like her!
Jörg made it to goal late as well, and in rigid class Tim got in 3rd, so he might keep his lead. In swift class, Manfred Ruhmer won the day. I landed after the 5th turnpoint, and when I face the strong head wind (and a lot of hills and trees in my way), I chose to land on a slope where already about 10 pilots landed before. One of them even pulled out a wind sock for me to show the wind direction and the gusts! That helped me a lot to do a good landing. Yesterday many people had destroyed parts of their gliders, as we landed in a really turbulent, gusty wind or even in rain.
Tomorrow is hopefully a day without wind, but with higher cloud base and better thermals. I really want to see the high mountains behind us, and I also want to go and visit Chrigel Maurer in the air. He is leading the Red Bull XAlps competition by almost 200km already, and tomorrow our paths could cross!

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