After yesterday's disappointing weather with no flying at all at North Hill due to low cloud and ICL had been scrubbed on Friday, there was a little bit of hope for Sunday with some marginal soaring weather forecast.
Club flying got going as normal, but the ICL briefing was expecting a very late start with lowish cloudbases and weak thermals as Dave Masson described "duff air".
The tasks were originally set based on Top Meteo forecast, but RASP was not nearly so optimistic, and so were modified down to a much smaller area.
Novice NH2 - TIE - BEA - NH2 91Km
Intermediate NH2 - BAM - BEA - WEG - NH2 128Km
Pundit NH2 - DUL - MBU - CLH - NH2 151Km
The top cover started to break at North Hill about 13:30, and the competition launches followed from 14:00 into a rather uninspiring sky. Eventually, the clouds started looking a little better, although watching Spot the gliders there were a lot of low-level struggles going on.
Pete Startup 230 flew off the back of the grid and completed the Novice task albeit with an almighty save from a 'non-convergence' near the south coast, and Ron and Dan 711 struggled round Club 100.
There were valiant attempts at the tasks but very few succeeded in scoring highly. Chris Wool and Jess Summers flying DG505 Intermediate task turned Bampton before heading for home. Paul Little in Open Cirrus completed the Novice task but didn't score due to administrative errors. Jake Matthews from Culdrose flying for NHL in Junior also had adminstrative errors with the start and first turnpoint. Matthew Williamson in 611 flying Intermediate for Mendip also struggled after Bampton.
There were 4 landouts, keeping all the crews busy.
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| Chris & Jess - relieved to have landed back at North Hill (Mike Fawcett) |
Well done to Sam Prin Upavon for successfully completing the Pundit task and Paddy Hogarth Mendip for successfully completing the Intermediate task (although not having enough height to land back at North Hill)
Preliminary Scores are for Sunday
Novice:
No one passed Y without administrative penalties
Class not scorable
Intermediate:
Mendip - 6 points
Wyvern - 1 point
DSGC - 0 point
Pundit:
Wyvern - 6 points
Dartmoor - 5 points
DSGC - 0 points
Overall position after Round 2 (North Hill)
1st Wyvern 33 points
2nd MGC 22 points
3rd BWND 18 points
4th DSGC 17 points
5th DGS 11 points
Well done all.
Thanks to Pete Bennett NHL Vice-Captain for managing the whole weekend very well.
