Worlds 2013, day 10, task 9

Blog posts here are getting shorter as I am getting more tired :-)

Task 9 was around 250km, 4 turnpoints, going back to Forbes. Olav Opsanger again did a great flight and reached goal as only Norwegian, while Nils Aage landed just short, me and Olav lien just behind that, Johnny at the 3. TP, and Tormod between the second and third TP. Less than 20 pilots made goal, so the task was hard enough… The leader Manfred landed out and lost his 200 point lead, so it’s suddenly exiting again in the top.

We had real clouds for the first time, and conditions in the startgate were good, even though we started one hour earlier than normal. I had a good start with Olav Lien and Johnny, but got some really bad air all the way to the first TP. I lost over 30 minutes to Olav Opsanger and Nils Aage on the first 70km leg, just could not find any decent lift even under good clouds I had to take 1 and 2m/s thermal when Olav were reporting 5m/s thermals all the way.

After finally getting the TP I had a good run the rest of the task, gaining around 30km on the leaders, but the day ran out in the end, the last thermal was 0.2 m/s and drifted the wrong way, so I landed at sunset at 19:40 40 km short from goal after nearly 7 hours in the air.

Last day today, close to 200km out and return to the north, looks like a very hard day again.