What a day - an 83km triangle task was called this morning due to the light and variable wind forcast and clear skies. Same strategy as usual, get high at the Chelan Butte, make the crossing with room to spare, and then work the flats. With a triangle, the wrinkle is that invariably one or more of the legs will be somewhat against the wind and of course there was the crossing back over the river to the goal to contend with.

Unofficially, it looks like the fastest time was at around 3 hours and 30 minutes which is about 23km/hour. Pretty fast. My time was 4 hours and 30 minutes into goal which when I turned in my GPS was good for 25th place on the day. That's 4 hours and 30 minutes on course, that doesn't include the hour of circling around getting high prior to the race start so my day was quite long.

Once again, the Gin Zulu treated me well, although on this long task I could start to see where a faster wing would be more helpful. However, the pure joy of flying with such a rock solid wing with great performance as it has outweighs the stress I had on the Zoom. I must say that every Gin Zoom that I've flown with over the past couple of days has out-climbed me in every thermal. Either I'm heavy on the Zulu or those are just fantastic climbing wings.

Today was a day where nutrition was starting to play a part. Being out in the elements and concentrating for that amount of time taxes your body and it's critical that you take in water and perhaps some calories. Preparation before the race is also key, making sure that you're hydrated but not overly so since it's hard to pee while in the air.

Tonight is a wine tasting dinner and then two more days of flying if the weather holds. I'd be happy if today were the last day, I've had a fantastic experience so far.

For years I've been hearing about Chelan and it's kick ass thermals and dust devil spouts especially the "tower of concrete" ones that will pretty much wreck your day. On the fence for the past 3 months, I finally decided after much cajoling from friends to come out the the Nationals to fly in the competition.

I have been flying a DHV2 wing for the past 6 years and most recently I've put about 100 hours on the Gin Zoom. Since the mystic of Chelan was clearly imprinted in my mind, I decided to step down a bit and fly a DHV 1-2 - the Gin Zulu.

Wow! What a difference! I am having so much fun on the Zulu! A bit to my suprise - my initial thoughts were that the feedback was much less, it might be slower and the glide less. After four days of flying on it, I've been suprised to see that the speed is very comprable to just about every other wing out there except the very new comp wings. I can keep up with and pass guys on Boomerang IIIs! On full speed the glide goes down a bit more than I'd like but I can usually find a sweet spot somewhere at 3/4 to full bar.

The stability that I'm experiencing in this turbulent air is also increasing my joy. The greatest thing is not worrying about having an epic frontal on bar as the Zulu just doesn't want to collapse. I did have a 30-40% collapse yesterday that was a non-event - just opened right up with no turn what-so-ever.

What a great start to the Nats! Today is the start of day 5 with the weather looking great again today.

To recap the past four days, the first day was definately clouded over at about 99.9% so there really wasn't any sun. An ambitious task was called for something like 30 miles. To everyone's suprise 65 of the 86 pilots made it into goal. What an experience to know that even poor looking days can be epic!

Day two was a tough call for the task committee. They called a straight out task that they though would be a cross-wind task. However, the wind picked up and it was almost a straight upwind task - lots of work! Len made it to goal finally after flying 8 hours - landing at 7pm although goal had closed at 5 so he only got points for where he was at 5. Most of the field made it out to about 35-45 km before the winds really picked up.

Day three was called due to wind.

Day four was about to be called off but then a 63km task was called for the fun of it. Again to everyone's suprise, at least 50 pilots made it to goal. Pretty much a blue sky day so there were no clouds to fly by. Super fun day for me as I kept up with the lead gaggle for the most part.

Yow, here I go on this big trip and then drop the ball on keeping this updated.

Well, as for the Pemberton Whistler Championships, there were no task-able days so there wasn't much to report on. We did get some flying in during the four days but for the most part we spent time playing a lot of chess, hacky, and general socializing on launch or out and about. The area is spectacular and I'm really bummed that we didn't have any epic days.

We were treated with some really cool aerobatic shows by the local glider pilots. It was amazing to see the huge loops, stalls, chandelles, and ground skims at 100+ mph in those big wings.

Thanks to Mark Dowsett for throwing the event and I hope the weather is better next year.