The 2010 Monarca is off and running with a nice 71k race to goal. Sue rolled in to Valle on Monday, and I finally made my way from Colombia on Wednesday. We've had several nice days together hiking and just hanging out relaxing. The conditions here have been high pressure with no clouds and bullet thermals so I only did one warm up flight and then Sue and I both did an evening soaring flight from La Torre, which is the soaring site just above Valle de Bravo.
The first day was quite fast with good racing conditions most of the way around the course. The day was high pressure with no clouds but was all in all a pretty good race day with 32 pilots in goal. I flew quite well right up until the end when I made just an ever so slight turn towards the Pinon looking for a thermal, as the other 4 pilots in the lead gaggle kept pressing on the course line. Before I knew it, they were climbing and I was sinking. I immediately jumped on the speed bar and tried to catch up with them... I did catch them, but I was a good 100 feet lower, and when we found the next climb, I struggled with it while watching the 4 of them get it quickly and climb out. From that point it was full on racing for them and I was never able to catch up again. One of their group took a bad line towards the final turnpoint and landed on the Mesa. I came in about 8 or 9 minutes behind the 3 leaders in 4th place so was a good day of flying for me with one costly mental lapse at the end...
Winds are light and the weather forecast is looking really good for the rest of the week. Might even see some clouds tomorrow......
There are about 145 pilots competing so the start gaggles are pretty crazy. There are a few very inexperienced pilots so you really have to watch out when thermaling as occasionally pilots are doing things which can really take you by surprise if you're not ready....
results are here... http://www.monarcaparaglidingopen.com/
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