Again on Friday we were scrubbed at 08:00, as winds were forecast as pushing 40kts in many areas. Many people went home, and cloudbase was nothing spectacular.
Today, we had an occluded front sat a few hundred kilometres to our North, with the low that had been dominating our wetather for the last few days moving slowly north eastwards. We would still have some strong winds – around 25kts to start with at flying height but decreasing through the day – and a moist inversion sat above a very unstable and convective airmass, spelling out large scale spreadout. Various tasks were set for the different classes, with the Regionals A Class, 15m and Opens being set ~350km each. 15m were launched first, starting at 12:00, followed by the Regionals, with us in the Opens launching at 13:00.
Coming off tow, the air seemed great, with us getting four to five knot averages consistently to around 4,000ft QFE. We delayed starting for a fair while, as the sky closer to the first turnpoint looked pretty bad; much lower cloudbases and a few sea breezey looking features. Sea breezes and similar weather systems can be extremely useful if you’ve got the flexibility in your task to use them, but this possibility wasn’t open to us as the nearest section of the breeze was nearly 60 degrees off track.
There was a large cloud aligned along the wind coming up to the turnpoint which screamed of a convergence between much worse air to the south – caused by a trough in the Channel – and the better air to the north, but this delivered nothing. As we made the first turn we were at approximately 1600ft QFE, the other side of the convergence looking cloud and in the much worse air, downwind of the next turn, putting us in a less than great position.
We made progress a few kilometres north on track, but our options quickly thinned and the convergence (?) cloud again failed to deliver. P1 made a good save low down and we were able to gain a few hundred feet, making it to an into wind ridge which should have kept us in the air. We saw another glider low down probably 3km north of us, who was out doing us in climb rate, but weren’t in a position to push on to them as much of the ground in the area is forested with small ridges. After probably 15 minutes scratching we were making no progress, and with only one landable field nearby, we went into land there. Thanks again to the guys who came out and got us!
We’ve had better days, even though the sky to the north looked great, but from accounts of other pilots who made more progress than us, it wasn’t quite as good as it looked. Results are still to be announced for all classes, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a circa 100kph day for the leaders.
Warm front progressing through the day from south to north, overhead us at 13:00 although there is the suggestion that if we can get away on task before that reaches we have a second flying day – on the last day of the comp.
