Day 2

I had such a fun flight. Highs and lows and highs again. I really finished on a high, my first competition task completed in Finland... I've been sending Andy all over the Finnish country side but I think he's had quite enough practice and the trailer shouldn't be needed anymore.

Gliders everywhere pre start. The last cloud was quite a way from the start line so I stuck with the pack as we crossed the line in dead air heading to the cloud on the edge of the first turn. That cloud was part of a nice line that stretched 90 degrees left toward the next sector. We ran this line taking a few good climbs then had an amazing run into the second sector with a 45km glide at 250:1 with an average of 138km/h.

Now the exit of this sector is where I went wrong. I back tracked along the same street but needed to turn north to the next sector. Just as I left the second sector I saw a couple of gliders high, and tracking 90 degrees to the path in. This was the fork in the road where only I and Garret didn't take left track. I was at the point where I could see the long jump between clouds and told Adam that I think left track is best. He was behind but with a good group of later starters. Left track was much longer but under clouds the whole time and ultimately faster.

Garret and I jumped across the gap to a cloud giving a good climb. Then again a very long, slow glide accros a dead gap to the clouds at the max of the sector. I cored a rough climb that only gave me 4kts for 2000' but being so bubbly I was lucky and pulled right away from garret. I straightened up running to the edge of the cloud and caught a bubble 7.4kts for the last 800' to cloud base. Now on my own and not knowing where to go I headed direct to the last sector but back through the dead air from the previous leg. I know now that from there Garret followed the wide arc under the clouds where he saw the gaggle. This section cost me more time as the dead air on my direct heading was much longer. Eventually I got back into better air and topped up 1000' with 2.5kts. Losing more time on the others. Under the Cu again I had good climbs but they were much trickier to find and glides weren't as good as early in this part of the sky. Adam was saying the samething and it was definitely right to shift back a gear. I could now see gliders ahead of me and in the area. I met up with 3 and we were stopping in sensible climbs. Not strong but not too weak. Adam called a good climb ahead and my selection standard then rose. I found a great climb in the same area and took that to cloud base for a fast final glide. Into the last sector and I  sped home for the last 20km.

I had a whole lot of fun today, it was amazing in places and tricky in others. I just really need to learn to stick to the group.

From the aero tow I had a blade of grass fold over the wing. For the entire flight it was sitting on my leading edge. I couldn't even push it off with the bug wipers. It would just stick to the wiper and reposition itself somewhere else along the wing. That's got to be worth at least an extra 5 km/h average!

On final glide with a piece of grass