627 meters close to be precise... 627 measly little meters between the place my feet touched the ground and goal. Close enough to walk to goal. Close enough for the scorer to briefly think I had made goal. Close enough to hope for a 'Price is Right' rule change where the closest one to goal without actually reaching goal wins! But alas no such change will happen.
As it is I will have to console myself with a flight well flown, gorgeous views, and one poor decision that left me 627 meters from goal.
Today's conditions were, I am told, more typical Chelan weather than we have had previously. Blue skies, strong thermals, and dust devils hundreds of feet tall. The wind was from the northwest causing us to launch lakeside—away from the direction of the course. Many pilots had trouble getting high enough to cross over the butte where they could pick up a booming leeside thermal for their river crossing.
Sorry, rewind, a little site info: at Chelan the launch is atop a 3000+ ft butte and is launchable in nearly all directions. Just east of the butte is the Columbia river, and the canyon it has cut. Long XC's are generally across the Columbia on the flats beyond. The first challenge is to get high enough above the butte to cross the river and establish on the flats on the far side.
So back to the day: with the north launch the challenge of getting high is a bit greater since you are flying away from the course and need to get up and over the butte high enough to cross into the lee safely. I timed my launch well and hooked immediately into a good cycle. My track log shows that in 3 circles I was over the butte and looking for my leeside ride to the moon. I missed the moon but settled for about 8000ft and made my crossing.
I arrived high over the flats with plenty of altitude to go thermal hunting. But where to look? Sure, I was keeping my eyes on the 40+ other gliders out searching, but I've never flown flatland with no clouds. I was taught early on that in XC flying there are three stages: first fly the ground ,then the mountain peaks and ridges, and finally the clouds. Well, here I was with no mountains, no clouds, and too high to fly the flats.
Pilots with flatland experience explained to me that aside from watching other gliders or stumbling blindly into a thermal, the key was to fly above or even into dust devils! Nutty, huh? They also made it clear that I should not go anywhere near dusties under 500ft AGL.
Fortunately I stumbled into a booming thermal before I had to try hunting dusties. It brought me to just over 9000ft and just .5k from the start cylindar—my best start positioning ever. I used it well, crossing into the cylinder at over 9000ft just 1 minute after start time.
From there the flight was pretty much more of the same. I was able to stay high finding good thermals as I tracked pretty much straight through the first turn point and onto goal. About 25k from goal I topped out my best thermal at over 10k ft.
Then came the trouble... I took a line a bit downwind of goal (bad move since I would have to push into the wind to make goal) and found nasty sink losing nearly all of my height with still 8 left to go. After bobbling around in near zero sink, but still losing, I turned and ran to goal hoping to get as close as possible, maybe within 5k.
Then 200ft of the deck, my miracle thermal came to great me. I took it up to 3500ft while working my way slightly toward goal—a neat trick as it was drifting the other way. And then, disaster.
The sort of disaster from which there is no recovery... I got cocky. After having spent my first two comps, and the first few days of this one, flying very conservatively (and slowly) I decided to race. Yes, I knew there where at least 30 people ahead of me but I decided to stop wasting time circling and go on glide. It was a cinch. I had it.
By the time I figured out I'd blown it—that a couple more circles in my rescue thermal would have guaranteed goal, it was too late to go back. I briefly considered attempting a downwind pile drive landing in the hopes of tagging the cylinder. Very briefly as I figured goal probably wasn't worth a few broken legs or vertebrae. Instead I swore loudly (when you fly, no one can hear you scream...), hooked the glider into the wind and landed just short of goal.
But you know what? I'm not upset. I am still amazed at how much I learn each time I fly a competition task. My course and judgement through the flight are so much better than just a few days ago. I've learned a bit about flying flatlands. And I came damn close to goal.
I'm sure I dropped a good number of spots—into the 40s or 50s. Wonder if I'm still ahead of Farrell ;-)
