Some pictures from day 2

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Yesterday was pretty good again for me, got in as number 5 across the line, and got 7. place. We saw heavy rain on course, and it was a lot of shade from towering clouds for the last part of the course. Olav landed about 30 km out from goal, and he got to wait under a tree while the storm cam over and dumped wild rainshowers.

When the gustfront from the storm his us at goal it was extremely strong and violent. Check out Jamie’s pictures at http://naughtylawyertravels.blogspot.com/2010/01/wild-day-at-goal.html

Sorry for short updates, no time to upload pictures as we have to get some food and go to the briefing.

Lars Olav, Georgia and I spendt new years even in Sydney, watching the spectacular fireworks in the harbour, with 500 000 other specators, I’ve never been in such a big crowd before.

The next morning Olav picked us up at the hotel, and we drove to the Moyes factory to pick up gliders, and then to Forbes. My bag did not arrive with me at the airport, so I had to buy a helmet at Moyes so I could fly the next day. My harness with some of my flying gear was already at Moyes, but helmet, clothes, shoes, and lots of other stuff was still missing with the bag.

At Forbes it rained, so we just slept and got up early the next day for a test flight. It still rained in the morning, but soon enough the sun cam out and we could tow up. I had a nice flight quite early, and landed after about one hour happy that everything worked out.

The next thing that happens is that one Australian pilot parked his kingposted Malibu in from of my glider, and just walks away leaving it there in the wind, the glider gets picked up and the kingpost land on my top surface, making a nice hole and stretches the sail. I must be cursed af Forbes, last year I had a similar expirience. I could tape up the glider, this year so I can still fly, but it’s annoying to say the least. The responsible pilot claims he has no money and cannot buy me a new sail. Funny that since he has a new Malibu, all the hanggliding gear, and can afford to travel and Aerotow at Forbes. We’ll see what this ends up with…

Anyway, yesterday was the first comp day, after some changes we end up with a 140 something task, over quite wet terrain. I took the first start, and struggled to stay up for most of the day after that. I’m very rusty after no real competition flying for a year, and almost no flying at all last season. I quickly lost most of the pilots I flew with, and got very low at the first turnpoint. We never got more than 1100m AGL, so it was short glides and much thermalling in weak conditions.

From the turnpoint towards goal the terrain was very wet, it looked like flying over swamplands at times, and the roads were flooded in places. I did my best to stay up and get to goal, but I did not find the last thermal I needed over a tractor plowing a field, and had to land around 30 km from goal. I was extremely tired and not very focused by then, after more than 4 hours in the air.

On the way back to Forbes we stopped in Parkes to pick up my bag that finally arrived, 4 days late.