Monday August 4th: 86km race stopped at 16:50

"Today we had an 86km task, first 20km in the mountains, then in the flats and over some small hills.  It was similar to yesterday's task, just a little longer.

In the mountain part I attacked alone in front like yesterday, but this time conditions were not as good, so the others caught me at the end of the big ridge, and then it was big group flying all the way. Before the first turnpoint I took a risk and went off course below a nice looking cumulus, but there was nothing, so I found myself quite behind the first group.  Between first and second turnpoints thermals were frequent, although mostly weak, so pilots were changing positions all the time, while searching for the best climbs. 

The ones in front of me were painting the thermal zones, so I managed to go fast and catch the leaders before the second turnpoint.  After that thermals were generous and convergence zones allowed us to fly quite fast, zooming through the third waypoint and then on final glide towards the "safety" point 2km before goal.

I'm putting the "safety" point in quotation marks because that "safety" point was the reason why the task was stopped.  It was at 1200m in the mountains, just before goal.  Unfortunately for us, the leading guinea pigs, in the foot of the mountain there was strong falling wind, which brought us down like rocks and very very fast we had to go for landing - me, Schmocker, and I think Charles Cazeau also.  The ones coming after us saw the situation was ugly and were not pushing as much, so they arrived higher and managed to stay up for several minutes, but the rotor action was too much, so there were a couple "level 3" calls and the task was stopped without anybody taking the "safety" point.  Quite a stupid end to a good day of flying, but the weather forecast is looking good, so no worries.  Tomorrow we keep going.

Cheers,

Yassen"