Davis showed us a forecast for lift up to 3000 meters today, so I dressed up for the 3 degrees there. That was a big mistake… We did get to 2000 meters twice, but it just got lower and lower as we flew south towards the first TP in completely blue conditions. I was sweating and cursing, but nothing to do about the heat. I did a OK start, and caught up with the leading gaggle just before the first TP. Since conditions were quite crap we flew conservatively and I stopped to tank up as much height as possible before the headwind leg towards the second TP. I saw Atilla and one more glider ahead of me and I glided to get to the lift Atilla found, but I got a bad line with loads of sink and headwind, and came in too low to get up and landed there just a few km from the first TP.

I heard some pilots made it to goal, but it was a difficult day so I’m not too depressed about it.

Monsters to the north of us (From where I landed)

But completely blue over us and on the courseline.

149km out&return, but to the old Worlds paddock just south of Forbes. The airport complained that we were crossing the runway too low all the time, and we have to move to another goal field. As long as we get to fly back home I’m happy with it.

Weather looks good, forecast for base up to 3000 meters, and NW winds, low chance of overdevelopment.  Should be a good day again. Yesterday the thunderstorms stayed to the north of us, it was actually very blue on the course line.

Olav is sick today, he thought it was the seafood from a few days back, but it’s still not OK.

Some pictures from day 2

This server was down due to some power problems in the datacenter, hope it’s fixed now.

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.