Today was much cooler reaching a high temperature of 32c. At home that would seem like a very hot day but today it was just pleasant. The forecast was for strong lift, low top of lift and 30km/hr winds. With this information the task committee set a straight down wind task to hermid, a 250km task. Given to low top of lift I was thinking this would be a tall order.
I had a great start today. I was the last to tow up and was dropped in a great thermal. I hooked up with a couple other pilots and worked my way to the edge of the start circle. I arrived at a perfect time and was right in the mix with a big gaggle for the second start. We went charging off as the clock ticked over. It was nice to finally have so many pilots to fly with and I didn't have to tangle with them for an hour before the start. At the first climb we were split into a few different groups but all got up fast and charged forward. I was in a good spot higher than many pilots just in front of me making it easy to keep track of the pilots in front of me. We went on a long glide and pilots were getting low. They had stopped to climb but as some of us arrived over top of the them we found nothing. Every one at my height stopped and started turning in crappy broken lift any way. Floundering around in this useless lift I some how found myself on the bottom of the pack. I hit a strong core I banked up to get into it a some jerk off came flying right through the middle of it, cutting me off making me have to hunt for it again. I did finally connect with it again but buy this time I had lost the gaggle. I slowed down a bit taking every climb to the top as I didn't like the low base. I had a long glide in some huge sink. I was a little concerned as I was coming up on a huge forest that was going to require some height to get over or a long trip around it. Just before the forest I found some lift and managed to claw my way back up again with enough height to make the crossing. Again I got hit with some big sink flying across the forest. This left me low on the other side hoping for some lift. Down to under 1000' I hit some lift but not the core. I had a good field below me but searching was going to put me over less friendly looking ground. I just didn't want to risk a bad position in a strong wind that you couldn't penetrate into. I ended my flight hitting more lift at 50' making my approach even more of a pain. Not a very graceful landing but back on the ground safe. I had no cell coverage but with the spot my driver gets my position with out having to phone and I was picked up just after getting all my gear to the side of the road. I made it about half way down the course. Part of me wishes I would have dug in and tried to get back up but it's good to be able to fly again tomorrow.
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