Everyone was quite excited to race today with excellent racing conditions forecast and plenty of hungry pilots. We ended up getting a late start as the task committee for some reason was slow getting a task called, and the wing truck broke down requiring one of the buses to drive most of the way back to headquarters and rescue our gliders....
They finally called an 80k out and return task.... There are some nice pictures and other info on the world cup website... You'll have to copy and paste the link into your browser until I figure out how to get a link to work on the blogspot page....
http://www.paraglidingworldcup.org/
My launching today was less than sterling... I honestly tried to get ready early, but it seems that 100 other pilots were also on my exact time line.... I set up in front of the main launch area, and then me and the pilot next to me were 'pushed' to launch by several aggressive pilots above us as we were effectively blocking them and the clock was rapidly moving towards the start time and pilots were really feeling pressured to get in the sky. So both of us, feeling the pressure to launch pulled up at the same time, not really seeing each other, and then our wings became tangled and we had to abort our launches. I took a nice chunk of skin off my right knee but nothing too serious.. I was then forced to either try to launch from lower down the hill or go back up to the end of the line and really be late for the start window... I choose to launch from where I had ended up after the entanglement with the other glider, but looking behind me where I would be turning and running to launch it was really ugly with large rocks and really steep, lumpy, rocky ground. I decided to wait for a good cycle of wind so that the glider would kind of pull me up the hill and then I would just take off over the rough ground and that's just what I did so managed to get on my way in plenty of time after all
I absolutely killed the start and flew really well for the first part of the race, and then that old mind started working and I decided to push out across the first long valley crossing without climbing back up to cloud base... when I looked behind me and saw the lead gaggle I was with all turning and climbing I knew right then I'd probably made a critical mistake and I was right... It was way to early in the race to make a move like that.....should have stayed with the gaggle... After that I kind of relaxed and kept pushing as best I could and managed 44th place on the first day. I'm happy with my finish and excited to get to reset and try again tomorrow. This is by far the most talented and fastest group of pilots I've ever flown with. It's really a blast and I get to learn a ton as I go....
The hotel has a nice pool, and today goal was just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel so I was able to drop my stuff and jump in the pool which was really nice after a race. Food has been "ok"... we get breakfast and dinner included with our hotel room and only have to pay for water and any other drinks we might need.
Weather looks excellent again for tomorrow.... Today there were over 100 pilots in goal so I expect tomorrow for them to call a longer, more difficult race
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