Sorry the blog was published when it was not yet ready so here are the updates.
It took quite a while before they knew who was the winner yesterday. Penalty points for a too high start … a too early start … a too low finish, all variations passed by. So I thought I’d better look tomorrow and I just did.

In the end, Bruce won the 10 points, Tom was a great runner up, finishing first but the 3 seconds-too-early start killed his hope of 10 points, and Sebastian was 3rd. He must have had a hell of a job to land his glider in such wind. When Hanna flew a DIANA in Tocumwal, too much wind was a problem for launch and finish. Only now I heard Sebastian had a problem with that wind yesterday.

So, in the end not three winning musketeers (but I keep calling them so anyhow,  as we did in the past with three Dutch pilots Kees (Musters), Daan (Pare), and George (Schuit), but a double and a runner-up musketeer .

Here are two of the musketeers Bruce and Tom on day 5. Sebastian had some damage and was busy otherwise.
Photo courtesy a very proud Anita, and so she should be.

Here is the comment from the winner himself.

“Probably one of the most exciting days I have flown! The wind was blowing like mad, and when you are counting the seconds you don’t waste time with excess height. This means you are right down in the action, where there is severe turbulence, and an incredible amount of energy. It also means that you have very little room for mistakes, as a short period in the wrong place could mean you are on the ground. Once or twice today I had to slow a little just to see where to go next, which inevitably costs some seconds, but saves from having a disaster. At the beginning of the flight there were three different ways to go, which all gave similar outcomes, and after that there was some really fast ridge-running, so the opportunity to do anything different was limited. In a way I was lucky to be slightly behind the first four as we turned the last point, as it allowed me to watch the others and use better air, plus to manage my height more carefully without the pressure of close company. As we approached the finish I was sure that they had all flown below the limit, so I carefully ensured that I didn’t. In the end that is what gave me the result. Sad for Tom; he flew a great race, and was only seconds away from a win. You might imagine the Aussie camp is very happy again tonight.
Sometimes what we see and do in our gliders still absolutely amazes me. Today was incredible.”

And here is the link to Graham’s view on the day: http://grahamandmark.blogspot.fr/

Let’s put our focus on day 6! Already day 6 and each of the days have been so different. In fact, none of the days have been easy. Pilots really have to show their talents, but they are all winners from their qualifications, so they are GOOD!!!

Back in my next DAY 6 blog later.