Flight | Results | Photos
Grabbing for the Mask
Today was a strange and most excellent day.
Before hucking us off the hill we were informed that there would be a gift in goal—a Korean ceremonial mask for each competitor to arrive (similar to the one pictured on the Gin Gangster glider). And free beer.
I was pretty bummed yesterday after making it to goal reasonably high, scoring well (800+ points) and dropping to 38th overall (thanks to the new PWC discard system...)
So today I figured with really no chance of making it to the super-final I'd race for the damn mask!
The Task
Today started very much like the past few days, with a north push to a mountain about 7km beyond launch, and then a 15k or so track back along the main ridge to an ancient fortress south of launch. we've seen both those turn-points a bunch this week and though the run can involve getting deep in some windy canyons, I think everyone has figured out how to do it.
But after the second turn-point, we hooked south-east into unknown territory, and then the route led us due west for another 40k, for a total task length of around 80k.
The Twist...
To make things a little more interesting, the route took us down a somewhat narrow corridor south of an airport (and no-fly airspace for us) and north of a military zone with, wait for it, ACTIVE AIR EXCERSISES WITH LIVE AMMO!
Describing the route, Seong told us in his charmingly shy English "No permission. Stay north. Should be no problem."
SHOULD BE no problem!
Ok then, I'll stay north!
The Flight
As expected the flight started like the past few days with a death gaggle about 1k outside of the start cylinder.
Usually at PWCs the pilots are aggressive but very in control. The pilot level here is a bit lower and the start gaggles have been terrifying.
Abnout 5 minutes before the start I'd had enough and drifted away from the egg-beaters to catch my breath and prepare my race-to-the-mask.
I hit start about 30 seconds late but with good height and headed on course.
Returning from the start and turn-point 1, I stopped for some lift and avoided yestreday's mistake, making it over the first major ridge that had cost me so much time.
But, I did watch Denis Cortella fall into the canyon as I had, push around the point, and get some lift. Basically, we met up at the same point, both directions taking about the same amount of time today.
From there, we had the same ridge run south as the past several days. I was high. I was low. I got stuck once and scratched my way out with David Ohlidal and Julien Garcia. All in all, it was uneventful.
After turn-point 2 things got interesting.
First thing was that no one was getting much lift.
I turned tail from the turn-point back to the main ridge, as did most of the field, and following my "don't race, get the mask" mantra, bobbled around for EVER, maybe 20 minutes, with some top pilots including Anders Baerheim and Hannes Huber. Up a bit, down a bit.
Ahead of us, gliders had pushed out low on course and were landing.
David Ohlidal pushed out, worked some light lift, and ran back toward us.
Eventually Anders got fed up and pushed out. I stuck around a bit longer, and left with a few hundred extra feet, which in the end didn't matter.
From here the course, with still about 55km left, turned into flats with low hills.
And the lift got very very slow. Brazil slow..
Ahead of me there were several gaggles low and working very light lift.
To my left Anders was leading a group in something that didn't look very worthy.
For a moment I tried to push ahead of them, but there was nothing better in sight and Anders is a good pilot, worth sticking with.
So I turned back and joined them.
We turned dinky circles for maybe 10 minutes gaining almost nothing. Pushed a little fuirther out, found something light and crappy, turned a bit more.
This went on for a while until we found something that was light, but big enough to keep the vario beeping ever so slightly for an entire rotation.
We topped the slow guy out and continued on course.
It was a slow slog of maybe 10k from that position to turn-point 3.
After stopping just short of the turn-point for more Brazil-esque (100ft/m?) lift, we took the point and turned downwind toward goal.
The lift stayed crazy light, but now the thermal drift was in the direction we needed. We had 40km more to go, but even turning in zero-lift (zero-sink) brought us closer to home.
Anders and I stuck together, along with Dmitriy Chernyak from Russia, who was on a 2-3 (Niviuk Peak) and flying very well.
We spent 40k topping out light lift, drifting in zero, and going on some frightening glides. But in the end there was lift everywhere we needed it. Low and slow, but we worked it.
About 15k short of goal we stumbled (yeah dumb luck!) into a decent thermal over a river (huh?) and made enough altitude to glide over the gaggle ahead of us and get the better part of the lift that they had marked.
My vario started showing a 10:1 to goal and I yelled over to Anders that we should take it.
He Dimitiry and I peeled off, leaving a couple of our companions behind to climb a little more.
I was worried about coming up short again, so I didn't touch speed bar. Anders and I cruised along with trimmers out chatting while Dimitiry (who'd left a little earlier than us) kept his slight lead. With a tail wind and no bar involved, today's 2-3s go as fast as a comp glider.
A few minutes later we spied the goal line and put on some bar to catch Dimitiry.
He made it into goal about 20 seconds ahead of us, but with leading points Anders came out ahead, with Dimitiry and I tied behind him.
As I circled goal setting up to land I counted about 8 gliders and was wondering if maybe a bus load had aleady left—there had been so many gliders ahead of us earlier.
Seems all the other folks had dirted. What we saw was everyone in goal—the first pack had beat us by ~20 minutes, but Anders, Dimitiry and I came in 10th, and tied for 11th.
More importantly, we enjoyed our masks and beer :-)
Super Final??
Amazingly my finish brought me up TWENTY places in the standings. Right now I'm at 18th. 15 and higher automatically make the superfinal, but it's likely that the top 20 from each meet will make it as well.
So as of now, I'm fairly well positioned to make it.
We have one more day scheduled for flying, and I'd love the chance to try to hit the top 15, but wind and rain are predicted and it's unlikely that we'll fly...
