With the forecast for possible thunderstorms in the afternoon the task committee set a shorter fast course – 56km, from the same takeoff at Stol. The 140 gliders milling around the start cylinder going round in a few large but gentle thermals was a surreal experience. I hope someone has some video footage of it – it really was an amazing sight!
At this point there were an awful lot of gliders in front of me – I thought my start was ok but clearly not!
By the time I’d crossed the gap and got high again the lead gaggle was pretty much at the 2nd turnpoint, and a bit later they passed underneath me as I pressed on. The speed these guys fly at is incredible! But speed isn’t everything is it? I used to measure flying holidays by how many hours flying I’d got during the week, not how few 🙂
There were climbs in all the usual places and the rest of the course was pretty straightforward, although I felt I wasn’t thermalling as well as I had yesterday, and even as I arrived over goal I thought I was really slow. However it turned out I was 67th in with a time of 2 hours 12 minutes, and second sports class glider after Toby Colombe who beat me by three minutes. He was first sports class glider yesterday too… grrr!
Alex, Guy, Al, Pete, Mike, Ben and Fi all got into goal, Nick, June and Angus didn’t make it… A total of 115 pilots made it to goal I believe.
Advance paragliders in the West Country 
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