Tuesday 11th September - Nympsfield

An email from Trevor Stuart (Nympsfield's renowned ridge guru) forecast Tuesday to be a cracking day for the ridges, and with the wind just a touch north of West and blowing 20kts, the run from Lower Clompton to the north (a few miles north-east of Evesham) down to Bath Racecourse in the south would be possible. 
I decided to go at 6.30 am Tuesday, collected my glider from the club and headed for Nympsfield.

Trevor was already in his glider waiting for a cable when I arrived at 9.30 but he said the task for us (the main rabble) was NYM (Nympsfield), LCL (Lower Clompton), BAT (Bath Racecourse south), LCL, BAT, NYM = 360k. He had declared a 444k with remote start from LCL and remote finish at BAT, which including getting to the start and back from the finish points was 560k - hence the 9.30 start and some serious early ridge running up to Lower Clompton (LCL).

It was just gone mid day when I was launched and the thermals were going well so I climbed up a bit and headed north, cloud hopping along the approximate the line of the ridge until Bishop's Cleave just NE of Cheltenham Race course from where I departed the ridge line and just headed for the first TP. Conditions were pretty good with all the likely looking clouds delivered strong lift making the run back south to Bath uneventful. None of the usual ridge top excitement that seems to be the norm on all my previous visits to Bath Racecourse!

4M/s - 7.5kts on the averager - They must be french thermals!

Then back north again to LCL sharing the leg with Steve Eyles (LS4) who thrashed me by 3 or 4 minutes!

On the second run back down to Bath the high cover was shutting out the sun and the thermals began to fade. On the radio I heard that Trevor and Kia were having a tough time on the ridge by Wooton Under Edge so I decided to take weaker thermals and maintain my height - there might be plenty of opportunity to play with the ridges on the gentle slopes in and out of Bath!

Heading for Bath Racecourse top left - What ridge? It's barely visible from the luxury of 1200 ft!

 The lowest point in the whole flight was about 800 ft leaving Bath for the final leg home - That did feel a bit low to me after an afternoon romping along up in 'the gods' - but having crept along that bit at 300 ft in the past I wasn't too worried!

Low point - but nice sky!

 Then along came a one knotter so I took a few hundred feet and mozied along north until I bumped into another that took me back to 2500. Now safely back at Nympsfield I flew about a bit and smoked wheelbarrow hill and the main ridge a couple of times before getting the gear down and going into land.
Not a bad day for me - 360k at 77kph - real slow given the conditions but hey, WE FLY FOR FUN!!

See the BGA National Ladder for Tuesday. Clearly there was a lot of fun to be had!