Finally a great race day

Well seeing as how the local weather just refused to cooperate, the organizers just upped and moved the entire comp for a day to the mountains adjacent to Mt. Fuji - much closer to Tokyo.

It was an early 3:45 wake up for a 4:45 bus departure. They said about 4 hours including a few rest stops and that's about what it was. Seemed really windy when we first arrived in the area, but sure enough things died down enough to have a nice race. It was really great to finally get up to launch under nice skies and see pilots thermaling and know that we were going to have a fun afternoon.

Now the launch situation was something I have never seen. The launch is actually built right up and off the forest floor. Seemed constructed mostly of metal, and was covered with some kind of fabric. The only problem was that it was quite small... only large enough to lay out 2 gliders at a time, and the wind was light and fickle most of the time.

I've never seen so many sketchy launches which almost resulted in the pilot going over the edge with a partially inflated wing. the organizers and their helpers were positioned at the bottom with a loud speaker shouting instructions... BRAKES! or RUN RUN RUN! They were practically catching pilots who were about to go careening over the edge with a glider only half inflated.... There was netting out front - kind of like you would see approaching the top of a ski chair lift so if you did get all balled up and go over without flying it wouldn't be too serious. I managed to let the launch situation really distract me, and even though I had a good priority for launching, I kind of moseyed around taking my time, watching one top pilot after another launch...

The race today was a bit different then what we usually do. It was an "elapsed time race" instead of the normal race to goal. This type of race has several different start times, and is designed to try and make things more fair when the launch area is very slow or restricted as it was today.

Only problem was, the race course today was a 65k task set to go back and forth along the mountains. The first group was made up of very strong pilots - once they made the first turn point and turned to come back the other way, all they had to do was just look and pick their thermals as everything was completely mapped out for them by all the other pilots who were starting later. The first group just cruised and were much faster than any of the others who started later..... Perhaps some day it will just click for me and I'll finally "just get it" and won't be late to the start anymore... You think I'd learn after all these years. My launch was fine, and when I relaxed in my harness after getting airborne, I was being very thankful that I'd had an easy time of it after watching so many others struggle with very scary launches. Why I didn't just get ready and go with the leaders is beyond me.... typical Jack self psych out...

Had a great time on my R10.2 today, and only took one small tip crevate over 2:40 of very strong conditions at times. Glider is feeling more comfortable every time I fly it... Gin threw his reserve but landed just fine, and another pilot went into some trees but also escaped unscathed.

Tomorrow, the last day of the comp looks marginal again for the weather here in Hakuba, and we won't be traveling the comp again to Mt. Fuji..... So, it may have been a one task comp... I'll have to set my Superfinal ticket sights on Chelan in July......