After a great practice day on Saturday (76km task up and down and back up the valley again) we were all set for the first task. The forecast was good and conditions looked nice with cloudbase forecast to be 1800m rising to 2000m.
A 68km task was set with the start at 1330. Loitering around the start cylinder was easy enough, but heading from the start to turnpoint 1 saw lots of pilots very low and in fact one and possibly two in trees within 15 minutes! Top tip – always leave yourself an escape route…!
That was really the only tricky point as far as I was concerned, the rest of it was fairly straightforward although I did hit some rotor close to the third turnpoint and wasn’t exactly in contol of my glider for a few seconds! When it sorted itself out I had taken the TP and had to top up my height a little before heading on a big glide.
It was an easy run to the final TP and with a 3.5 glide ratio needed to get into goal it was full bar all the way!
My time was 2 hours 35 mins which put me in 52nd place and 3rd in the sports class I believe 🙂 Guy, Al, Mike, Pete, Nick and Fi all made it into goal, Angus, Ben and June landed short. 90 pilots in goal in total.
Advance paragliders in the West Country 
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