Captain Slow was adamant we had to be Off Chocks North Hill by 0700. "We’ll be rigged and ready to launch by 1300”, he said more than once and with his “this is a great plan” voice. By contrast to our more hopeful than enthusiastic mood, given the earliness of the alarm call, North Hill was in thick fog as we hitched up the trailers and Mrs Proctor was out hunting for her dogs in the gloom after she had finished cleaning the club house. So only 2 minutes behind schedule we were on our way to Denbigh despite the forecast. We might get a small window of opportunity before the rain arrives. Fingers crossed. Please let the rain be late!
Popping into the Lleweni Parc club house to say our hellos to Kevin and co delayed Pete’s schedule a little more and we were actually rigged and ready to go by 1400. Our mad rush had been dampened somewhat by the lack of wind and gloomy looking sky here too. Dan self launched in the Arcus and was seen just about level with the top of the ridge reporting the wind to be about 12kts SSW. Hey Ho we had come to fly so 230 Pete went next, followed by M5 Matt with KMV Martin playing tail gun charlie. 230 and M5 slowly fought their way up the slope and were able to sneak over The Tusk and move to a better part of the ridge but KMV had a tougher time of it and ended up popping back to Denbigh for a relight.
Within half an hour the wind picked up to a good 18kts and the ridge switched from usable to ballistic. We didn’t venture North of Bodfari gap as we were not convinced the lower ridge there would work given the amount of southerly component in the wind so whizzing down to the Southern turn point and back a few times consumed the first hour of our flights. Cheesy grins all round.
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| Martin finds the wave |
By now the sky had also opened up and there were promising signs of wave. Martin was first to call getting established in strong lift just to the North of Moel Famau. So we abandoned the ridge in the quest for height. There was a lot of moisture in the air and clouds formed and dissolved as the wave moved around, adding to the challenge of trying to stay in the lift. As is usually the case the higher we climbed the easier it became to read the sky and a classic flying saucer lenticular near Ryl took us all up over 8000’ in amongst the incredible cloudscapes.
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| Pete S guides 230 above the clouds |
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| Running the wave bar over Rhyl with view to Snodonia |
The front that was forecast to arrive late afternoon was becoming evident by the clear air between the clouds rapidly filling with even more cloud giving us an excuse to forsake the cold heights and make a beeline for the club before we needed an instrument rating to land. An unexpected gem of a day. Mega cheesy grins all round.
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| Wave bars joining up as the front approaches |
