It was a gray and windy day today, we got a task of 130 km direct to goal, with a forecast of 25 knots winds from the east, and slow lift. The first pilots were towed upwind and almost to cloudbase. Most came back and landed, but some stayed up over the airfield. The mood was subdued at the launch lines, but slowly pilots got ready and started to tow up into the grey skies.

I got in line and got towed up nicely in the strong winds, but soon the tugpilot turned downwind and dropped me off beyond the point of no return where I could not glide back to the airfield to retow. I was dropped off low under a gaggle of pilots slowly sinking out, and half of the pilots glided back to the airfield, while I was too low to do anything but try to stay up. I was not very happy at that point.

I found a few broken thermals kicking off the trees, but the windy conditions did not help in finding anything useful, and I had to land within the 15 km start circle. Olav got dropped off in a much better position, got up and flew the task almost to goal, he had to land 2km before goal just as a shower dumped lots of rain and wind on us. Emil and I drove to pick him up, and after some exiting driving on wet muddy farmroads we found him and managed to get out again without getting stuck.