Task 6 (aka “shoulda gone tubing”)
Hotter than hell out, we are lining up. Armand pops a weaklink and breaks a down tube. Davis gets in line and appears to wave off a Trike tow… hmmmm… maybe he should have a cigar, there’s a “real man” line in here somewhere…
Anyhow, it’s hotter than hell out- did I mention that? And I don’t want to put on my shiny new white speed sleeves (the reason I went far yesterday) but I do and I get in line. Everyone is breaking weaklinks and the gliders in the air aren’t that high, but I need to get in the air. Its hot out.
Jim puts me near a nice climb and when it peters out I find another closer to the SW where we will head out. All the big boys come in over me and when it tops out, they go start the race. I can’t stay and waffle and lose altitude, and even though I am below, I go too. I follow Dustin from below, since I think he may know where to get a climb and I am praying that he will crack a turn but he doesn’t. I am down to 900’, 700’, 600’ ugh! Then I grab a dusty and I am at 380’ and it almost spits me out but I start turning. I get to 1100’, now I feel high- until I see Kraig Coomber (not competing) and Mark Dowsett way high over me. Then I see the rest of the gaggle and they just look high. I try to keep climbing but I am losing it and they all leave. Damn! I get stuck in this area for an hour, getting to 2500’ and back down to 1000’. Over and over. Finally I leave, after some confusion about which way to go ( I wasn’t paying attention but I had gone way east of the TP) and that’s when I hit the mother of all thermals. I got the shit kicked out of me and I kept thinking at my altitude I may not have time to get out the ‘chute if I needed to. I tried to get my whole glider into it and climb some and mostly I did, except for the partly that I didn’t- 1600fpm up next to 2000fpm down- too small to get all the way in and it was kicking my ass. I hung onto the corner of my basetube and tried to tuck it there- stay banked so I don’t go over- and wrestled with this thing for a while. Now I was afraid to leave it, but when it seemed to run out of steam, I finally did. Mark D was on the ground now, Mark F was back at the pool with many others, and I decided that being on the ground after this short flight was just fine by me. I did try to find a climb to get back to the hotel, but that didn’t happen. I had a decent landing and the Mark picked me up- again before I broke down- and we headed for the pool. I got like 80something points for the flight- and my best placing for the meet. Guess it was a super low points day.
Shoulda gone tubing.