Sun 24th January

 Condor Racing

An expedition to Denbigh for the Sunday Condor racers with a task set by Stewart. Eight Ls and a Dragon!
108km Lleweni Parc - Denbigh South - Bala - Cader Idris - Llwyngril Bridge - Llanbedr
Wind 305/11kts, Moderate thermals (activity high), base up to 3500’.
School class gliders, With PDA, Winch Launch. Start window 20 mins.
Start Lleweni Parc below 2000ft, finish Llanbedr above 1000ft.
Plenty of good thermals around today, but a lowish cloudbase. Ridges will help for much of the task. Tricky upwind final leg.

 The team lined up on the grid at Lleweni Park with six Ka6CRs in bright colour schemes and three K21s. The first leg was following the ridge line with plenty of thermals kicking off. Not long after the turn at DRS, Dan reported a total blackout both VR and on the monitor, but as he was still flying, a plan was hatched by Stewart for some blind formation flying, this worked well for a while until Dan eventually landed out. 

The rest of the group continued at different paces to Llanbedr, with Chris leading the way at 73kph. 

 

In the evening, Stewart and Dan flying ASW20s took part in Day6 of the Condor World Cup in Denmark, it was another large field with a late start as part of the plan. Centering in good thermals not too far from track was key and helpfully Dan caught up the field with lots of LS4s marking thermals, Stewart had taken another restart and was further back and largely on his own for the 240kms. 

Both had a couple of low saves, but Stewart ended up 17th and Dan 24th but only lost about 50 points on the winner.  Overall Dan is 24th  with 6 flights and Stewart 38th with 5 flights. With 17 /24 flights counting it's all to play for. - J&P