My Flight
Task 1 Results
Overall Results
Chelan XC Open Website

This week is the 2008 Chelan XC Open/2008 Canadian Nationals/Pre-PWC (three comps for the price of one!).

I wasn't really robbed. In fact I scored my first task win, beating #2 by a full second.

Results here

My complaint? It was a 999 point day! No idea what took away the single point, but though I was robbed of a perfect (1000 point) day, it does at least leave me a goal to reach for.

That and keeping my position for the rest of the meet.

It's not as if my 7 point lead is insurmountable :-)

As for the day itself, it was a long 50km cross-wind run with a fast 12km downwind race to goal.

Chelan is flatland flying which means you can generally see the entire field the whole day. I find it very hard to tell relative position as there are often people in front, but they may be lower. Even the people who are higher will have to stop and gain altitude in thermals, so it's hard to say if they are ahead or not.

I had a good start, crossing the Colmbia River from Chelan Butte (launch area) with the first group of 3 gliders.

We made it onto the flats first, but were slowed by the need to search for lift. We eventually found something light and were caught up by the bulk of the field—it felt like all 80 gliders packed back up between the rim of the Columbia and the power lines coming off the Grand Coulee Dam.

From there it was a game of hop-scotch. A group would push out (I was not with the first group to leave the rim-thermals), get low, and go hunting. The group behind might pull into the thermal high, or just overfly and take the lead.

So for most of the day I had no idea where I was positioned.

Toward the final turn-point (right before taking a sharp-left turn and running the 12km downwind to goal), Matt 'Farmer' Beechinor, Nate Scales, and I pulled ahead of the pack.

About 5km before the turn-point, Nate had fallen away, and Farmer and I were left with the lead all to ourselves.

3km out my vario was telling me that I had a 12:1 glide through the turn-point into goal. I was expecting a strong tailwind and that seemed just doable.

Unfortunately (for me) Farmer was right with me and a good 500ft above me.

That meant he had a better chance of reaching goal on glide and more altitude to play with—he could push speed bar and beat me where I had to fly slow at best-glide to make it in.

Knowing I had to somehow gain on him I made a quick turn through some bubbles to see if there was a ride. There wasn't, but when I looked for Farmer to see how much ground I'd lost to him, he was gone.

When I made my turn, he lost half his glider pushing speed, the subsequent cravat and stalls to clear it left him below me and behind.

At this point, I was ahead and positioned for the win.

Mike Steed was ahead of me at the turn-point, but low.

I overflew him and turned for goal.

It should have been a cake-walk from here, but I hit some massive sink and half-way to goal it was clear I wasn't going to make it. I had to stop and make some turns.

Fortunately, I stumbled into some lift and started turning.

At this point Santiago Baeza (Mexico) and Leopoldo Turco (Venezuela) caught me. They were higher and flying faster. We turned together and were soon all at the same level.

They seemed more willing to push speed and fly fast than I was, so I knew I had to leave lift before them if I was going to win.

When my vario showed 9:1 glide, I bailed, maybe 10 or 20 seconds ahead of them.

But having blown a day at the West Coast Championships by pushing too hard and balling up the glider (3 times in a row actually) AND remembering how not more than 10 minutes earlier, Farmer lost what looked like win, to an 'event', I didn't want to push it.

Staying off bar as long as I could (until Santiago and Leopoldo had almost caught up), I finally pushed somewhere between 1/2 and 1/4 and beat them by mere seconds.